{"id":3845,"date":"2017-09-20T06:46:58","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T05:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potbanks.wordpress.com\/?p=3845"},"modified":"2017-09-20T06:46:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T05:46:58","slug":"we-need-online-map-services-to-accept-os-grid-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2017\/09\/20\/we-need-online-map-services-to-accept-os-grid-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"We need online map services to accept OS grid numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s surprisingly difficult to find <em>any<\/em> online map service which accepts Ordnance Survey grid references, even the OS-based <a href=\"http:\/\/footpathmaps.com\/\">footpathmaps.com<\/a> which one of the quickest-loading map services in the UK. Surely the UK government should require that the OS licence a grid reference option ASAP, to all the major map services? A little drop down box, input your OS GR number&#8230; and off you go. How difficult can it be? <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/oldimages\/redir.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/oldimages\/redir.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"271\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3846\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thankfully that&#8217;s exactly what the <a href=\"http:\/\/oobrien.com\/go\/\">National Grid Reference Redirect<\/a> has made.  It&#8217;s blissfully simple and <em>works<\/em>. Sadly it doesn&#8217;t speed up the incredibly slow-loading and generally spam-filled online map services, but it works with Google Maps and Bing Maps and more.  <\/p>\n<p>You just have to make sure you use the format <font color=\"Blue\">SJ<\/font><font color=\"Red\">882<\/font><font color=\"Green\">359<\/font>.  That means if you have a more precise four-number grid reference like SJ882?359? then you&#8217;ll need to lop off the last &#8216;?&#8217; number in each block of four.<\/p>\n<p>In future it would be great to see it work with the excellent footpathmaps.com.   The other great UK mapping service <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.nls.uk\/geo\/find\/#zoom=15&amp;lat=52.9208&amp;lon=-2.1762&amp;layers=39&amp;b=1&amp;point=0,0\">maps.nls.uk<\/a> can already handle OS grid reference input, although only for historic maps, and it&#8217;s often as slow as all the others (bar footpathmaps.com).<\/p>\n<p><em>Update: footpathmaps.com no longer offers OS maps.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s surprisingly difficult to find any online map service which accepts Ordnance Survey grid references, even the OS-based footpathmaps.com which one of the quickest-loading map services in the UK. Surely the UK government should require that the OS licence a grid reference option ASAP, to all the major map services? A little drop down box, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}