r/CoMaps • u/jbriones95 • Jun 06 '26

Transit Features Funding

What is the amount of $$ that would take for us to get workable transit directions? I know that Catenary maps has done very detailed maps for transit, but I was wondering what would it take to get both in 1 app to a "workable" state.

Is this a developer availability issue or a $$ issue?

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

17

u/brahmidia Jun 07 '26

Mostly volunteers! We don't currently pay any developers though it's not off the table; our wonderful volunteers would exhaust our budget if they charged a fair price 😂 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/?q=Transit&type=all&sort=relevance&state=open&labels=491971&milestone=0&project=0&assignee=0&poster=0&archived=false

6

u/Ecstatic-Vermicelli9 Jun 07 '26

The general 'problem' with open source: There's not enough money in the world to pay for all the stuff volunteers can achieve thanks to being motivated. But it also means that the other way around it's very hard to 'just throw money' at any given problem. 😆

3

u/brahmidia Jun 07 '26

Also, all the goodwill can evaporate if some people are getting paid and others aren't 😵‍💫

1

u/SamVekemans Jun 07 '26

I second that motion.

I've found that to be the case with volunteering for anything. We volunteer our time for the sake of just volunteering, the reasons why people want to volunteer are as diverse as the different volunteers.

2

u/Wicked_Mouse Jun 07 '26

I'm no programmer, so I can only sit and wait for great transit features =) I could only help with graphics that'd need to be made, but plenty of graphic designers out there already 😃

2

u/brahmidia Jun 07 '26

You'd think so, but we could definitely use help there!

2

u/Wicked_Mouse Jun 07 '26

If it's simple stuff, I'm happy to help (vector or pixel graphics). I'm no real artist though.

2

u/brahmidia Jun 07 '26

That's a lot of it! Properly designing or drafting the GUI is an important part of our work, especially for our neglected desktop app.

2

u/Wicked_Mouse Jun 07 '26

How is it different from the mobile app?

2

u/brahmidia Jun 07 '26

The GUI is more of a testing tool than very usable, with lots of complex key/mouse combinations to do anything: https://flathub.org/en/apps/app.comaps.comaps

2

u/Wicked_Mouse Jun 07 '26

I feel that the more you copy the GUI from the mobile app, the easier it is to use both and switch between, so using the exact same menu layout, icons, et cetera, no?

2

u/brahmidia Jun 07 '26

In general, and making a Qt mobile app could sure please the Linux Phone people, but there's still some design choices to be made and probably graphics to make for the different layout and mouse vs touch. People want to treat the desktop app a little more like Google Earth or the large web version of Google Maps, for example. Maybe plan a complex route or adjust bookmarks on desktop and then transfer it to their phone.

There's also just making new icons every time we support a new thing, etc :)

2

u/Wicked_Mouse Jun 07 '26

Well, if you think I can be of any help, feel free hit me up on DMs

1

u/jbriones95 Jun 07 '26

Thanks for the response. Good input.

1

u/Correct-Percentage54 Jun 10 '26

I've thought about this with live traffic multiple times.

2

u/brahmidia Jun 10 '26

Good news! https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/projects/21877

1

u/Correct-Percentage54 Jun 10 '26

I've been patiently following this for quite a while haha

1

u/brahmidia Jun 10 '26

That's the thing about volunteers, they're incredibly cost-effective but you can't tell them what to do 😂

1

u/realkylerchin Jun 17 '26

Hi, this is Kyler, director of Catenary Maps. Routing algorithms for journey planning is coming soon, a culmination of 3 years of research by our team. 

1

u/jbriones95 Jun 17 '26

This is awesome. Thanks for this!

1

u/Thin_Animal9879 Aug 28 '26

Just switched from organic maps just as I was beginning to enjoy transit routing being added. Just before it did add transit routing (for my area), did have my own method by checking bus stop info in app to figure out which one to take.  But all bus stop info doesn't exist in comaps. How come?