MySwissAlps.com features ads, commercial and non-commercial Website maintenance December 5
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Hello MySwissAlps visitors,
We will be performing technical maintenance on our website tomorrow, December 5. The website will be unavailable for short amounts of time, and it will offer limited functionality during the entire operation. Limited functionality means that parts of the website will not work, including posting to the forum and creating new user accounts. I will be posting back here when the work is completed.
Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience!
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Hi again,
Most of the maintenance is completed. To finalize this, there will be a bit of downtime in the coming night (CET timezone), about 9 hours from now.
Apart from countless technical issues that have been addressed, this is what has changed:
- Search: searching the website using the search box in the top of the website has been improved (better search results).
- Tickets all in one place: on pages of panoramic trains and other attractions, the Tickets tab always had a link to an official price list. Further links to buy tickets were on the Packages tab though. We are now moving those links to the Tickets tab. The Packages tab will only contain guided tours, and, well, packages. See http://www.myswissalps.com/berninaexpress/tickets and http://www.myswissalps.com/berninaexpress/packages, for example.
- Forum attachments: the maximum allowed size of attachments has been increased from 1 to 2.5 Mb.
- Maps: the maps on our attraction, hike, town and regional pages have been improved. A disadvantage is that you have to click a button to show the map. This was required since maps were always loaded even if people weren’t looking at them. Maps on hiking pages now have a link below them. This allows you to download a KML file with route coordinates. If you open that file in Google Earth, you can view the route in 3D. You can convert the file to whichever format you like and store it on a GPS device, use it in apps, etc. (no support on all of that!) Please see http://www.myswissalps.com/hiking/lugano/route for an example. I am still working on the new maps and will be posting more details about this later.
Hi Arno,
Did you remove the “results on the fly” feature of search? On iPad I have to hit “Return” to now get search to work.
Hi Rockoyster,
The search feature was completely rebuilt and indeed the on the fly results have been removed. It happened to be part of the search engine we used, but I wasn’t happy with the actual search results and technical overhead. So we now have different (I think more relevant) search results and a page listing those results instead of a drop down. You can hit Enter/Return or click the magnifier to execute your query.
It takes a bit longer for new and changed pages to pop up in the results. So the chances of hitting a “404 not found” page are a bit bigger but those will go away automatically. Other than that there are advantages only. At least I hope and think so 🙂
Thanks Arno. I was never a big fan of the “on-the-fly” thing. Keep up the good work.
Hi Arno,
Did the latest updates introduce this weird treatment of URLs/link text containing special characters in posts?
BLS Regio-Express Lötschberger (http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-au/experiences/bls-regioexpress-loetschberger/)
Lötschberg Base Tunnel (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lötschberg_Base_Tunnel)
Though not necessary I can sort of understand URL being altered but why the “link text”?
Hi Rockoyster,
Yes, somehow it did and I’ve already scheduled to take care of that early 2020. Characters like ö are a problem in links apparently. But the equivalent oe isn’t.
Hi again Rockoyster,
I found that the solution to this issue was pretty simply so I implemented it straight away. Here’s a correct link to Zürich. Feel free to let me know if there’s anything faulty left.
Great, thanks Arno. Here’s a test . . .
You will then travel on the BLS Regio-Express Lötschberger (http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-au/experiences/bls-regioexpress-loetschberger/)train over the traditional, more than 100 year old mountain route, giving you a wonderful view along the impressive peaks and down into the Rhone Valley. The faster more direct but less scenic route between Spiez and Visp incorporates the lengthy (in distance) but shorter (in time) Lötschberg Base Tunnel(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lötschberg_Base_Tunnel).
All good. 👏👏👏
Hi again,
This took a little longer than expected, but all map features are available now. In summary, you can:
- Switch between street view, satellite view and topographic view. The topographic view shows contour lines so you can easily see the difference between steep and gradual slopes;
- Download a KML file to open in any application you prefer, like Google Earth;
- Show the map in full screen (particularly handy on a phone);
- Show your current location (again handy on a smart phone when you’re there).
A nice example map can be found on http://www.myswissalps.com/hiking/bettmerhorn-marjelensee-fiescheralp/route.
Pages about mountain tops, train routes, regions and towns have similar maps.
Hi Arno,
Sounds great. I just tried to look at your example map using Safari on an iPad. Clicked on “show Map” but nothing happened. I haven’t tried in alternate browsers yet.
Works OK with Safari on a Mac. 🤓
Works OK using Chrome on Android. Works on a 12.9 iPad Pro but NOT on my 10.5 iPad Pro using Safari. Both running latest iPadOS. Odd.
Just tried it again on a 3rd iPad and works OK so back to my original iPad and discovered it worked in Private mode so seems like something stuck in cache or something on the iPad it doesn’t work on.
Tried clearing website date for MySwissAlps and Maps.googleapi. No good
Cleared all Website date and History and the problem is resolved.
Sorry for the false alarm. 🤓
Hi Rockoyster,
Great, thanks for testing! That’s a good stock of iPads you have there 😉
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