Maps and GNOME 48

 

 

In a few days it's time for the GNOME 48 release.

So it's time to make a wrap-up with the last changes in Maps for the next release.

 Redesigned Route Markers

One issue that has been addressed was that the old markers we used to mark the start and end locations for routes, being filled and hollow circle icons respectively could be hard to tell apart and actually see which is which.

 

So now to mark the start we show a marker containing the icon representing the mode of transportation.

 

 The “walk” icon is also used for start of “walking legs” in public transit iteneraries, so this way it's getting a more consistent look.

 

 Redesigned User Location Marker

This was already covered in an earlier blog post, but it might be worth mentioning especially now that we once again have WiFi- and Celltower-based positioning again thanks to BeaconDB (it's already enabled by default in Fedora 41, and I think some other distros as well). We now have the redesigned location marker, using the system accent color.

 

 

Transitous Public Transit Routing Migrated to new API

Furthermore the Transitous support has been migrated to the MOTIS 2-based API. This has also been backported to the 47.x releases (as the old API has been retired).

Also public transit routing in Finland will start using Transitous from 48. As Digitransit has slated the retirement of their old OpenTripPlanner 1.x-based API from late April it seemed appropriate to start using Transitous for that region now.

 

Transitous Talk at FOSDEM 2025

When mentioning Transitous I also want to mention that the recording of mine, Felix Gündling's, and Jonah Brüchert's FOSDEM talk around Transitous is now available at:

 

https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4105-gnome-maps-meets-transitous-meets-motis/ 

So, please enjoy this, and all the other improvements in GNOME 48 when you grab it! 😎

Pre-FOSDEM Maps wrap-up

 As I've done some times previous years, I thought it would be appropriate to give a bit of a status update on goings on with regards to Maps before heading for this year's FOSDEM

Refreshed Location Marker

One of the things that landed since the December update are the new revamped location markers

The marker now uses the system accent color, and sports a “torch” indicating the current heading (when known).

And the circle indicating approximate accuracy of the location now has an outer contour.

And on these notes, I would also like to take the opportunity to mention the BeaconDB project (https://beacondb.net/) with the goal of building a community-sourced wireless positioning database. It is compatible the now-defunct Mozilla Location Service (MLS) and works as a drop-in-replacement with GeoClue.

Improved Visuals for Public Transit Routes Lists

The “badges” showing line numbers/names for public transit journeys, and markers for shown on the map when selecting a trip has been improved to avoid some odd label alignments and better looking contours (on lower contrast against light or dark background). The labels are now drawn directly using GSK instead of piggy-backing on a GtkLabel, doing some Cairo drawing on top of that. One additional benefit here is that it also gets rid of some of the remaining usages of the GdkPixbuf APIs (which will be gone in a future GTK 5).

 

Transitous Move to MOTIS 2

On the subject of transit, Transitous has now migrated to the new MOTIS 2 API. And consequently the support in Maps has been updated to use the new API (this is also backported to the stable 47.3 release).

The new API is easier to use, and more in-line with the internal data types in Maps, so the code was also a bit simpler. Also now with the new API we get the walking instructions directly from MOTIS instead of using GraphHopper to compute walking  “legs”. This has made searching for routes in Maps quite a bit faster as well.

FOSDEM

And when talking about FOSDEM, me, Felix Gündling, and Jonah Brüchert will host a talk about Transitous in the “Railways and Open Transport” devroom (K.6.401) on Sunday @ 16:30 CET

https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4105-gnome-maps-meets-transitous-meets-motis/

So maybe see you in FOSDEM!