This page collects tips that can improve your experience when using SoleWay.
Route URLs (such as e.g. this one) can be used …
In signatures as a handy way to direct your email addressees to your office and avoid having to type in directions all the time
as an example, here is the signature block of Nico Van de Weghe
Prof. dr. Nico Van de Weghe
Ghent University - Department of Geography (WE12)
Belgium - 9000 Ghent - Krijgslaan 281 (S8)
Tel.: +32 (0)9 264 47 12
CartoGIS - Office location
in web pages (see Technical tips below)
Routes to nearby rooms usually differ in a few details only. To enter many routes in a "batch mode", use the "Create similar" link that you find below routes as well as when creating a new route.
Make sure the starting point is accurately positioned on the starting point of the route by zooming in sufficiently: e.g. don’t put the starting point in the center of your city/state/country, but rather at the actual starting point of the route (e.g. a building entrance), that you name in the from field. Even if the Google Place picker pins a starting point (often the center of a building), move it (as best as you can) to the actual starting point of the route.
Avoid nonspecific terms such as "my office", use your name, or your function, office function etc. instead; remember that this bit of text is used to find a route, and the smaller it is, the easier the user will find it.
Avoid names that only make sense when consulting a map: e.g. "central wing" is useless for a visitor that isn’t aware of the layout of the building wings. Use and name as much as possible landmarks and signs already present in the building.
Be careful with ambiguous words: a typical issue is "floor" - this has a different meaning in British and American English
Try to make the from and to descriptions as short as possible, just enough to distinguish them from other local routes. Avoid street/city/country names, as this information is inherently present in the route starting point. Short descriptions give routes more chance to be discovered by users using "Similar search" when not knowing exact spellings.
from : describes the starting point (the one you indicated on the map)
to : describes the end point of the route
You can also search for a comma separated list of route numbers in the to input box.
When possible, ensure that you set the search location near the building, because SoleWay will also group/order routes based on increasing distance from the searching location
Try to correctly spell search terms to reduce the risk of SoleWay filtering away routes you might be interested in. If you are not sure about spelling, enable the "similar search" filter.
Check that your search preferences use all languages (currently English, Dutch) otherwise you might miss routes.
When using exact search matching, the '%' symbol can be used as a wildcard
If you want to have your user name changed, please contact Support.
If you want to transfer a route to another account or user, please contact Support.
Organisations can be created to group users that are allowed to create routes for the organisation.
Areas can be defined where no-one, or only designated users, can create routes.
Routes can be combined into so-called "QR sets". A typical use case is to affix a QR to a board that has lots of directions; the QR collects all those directions.
empty fields don’t intervene
case sensitive searching is in effect
field filter is cumulative, so filling in more fields <i>narrows down</i> the result
blanks and newlines DO matter. currently, newlines are lost after a Filter, so make sure to re-include them before clicking the Apply! button!
CAREFUL: always check the results before clicking the Apply button, as the operation cannot (easily) be undone
Following tips are mainly for users that embed SoleWay links in other websites.
To restrict routes to a specific (and previously created) organisation, use the /org/<id> URL.
Routes can be restricted to a specific organisation by including a &org_id= query. Example: https://soleway.ugent.be/?to=40.08.120.052&org_id=1
By using the ?to=<search term> variant (e.g. https://soleway.ugent.be/?to=40.08.120.052), you can provide your web users a link that searches for routes that match the search term (e.g. a room reference that can be fetched from a local ERP), provided that the room reference is mentioned in the route to field. To further limit results, you can restrict to a specific user, specific languages, center on a specific location (&lc=<lat>,<long>) and optionally &range=<range> (in meters).