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Comment by gabemart | Hacker News Reader

> I personally f.i. enjoyed the from: to: keywords in Google Maps search. That feature disappeared and probably the majority of users wouldn't use those anyway.

I still use that feature every day. I have a smart keyword setup so that I just type:

  maps from LAX to San Francisco

into the URL bar and get taken straight to a Google Maps page showing me that route [1]. Forgive me if I've misunderstood you and you're talking about something else, but this feature still exists. AFAIK I'm using the latest version of Google maps.

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview?q=from+lax+to+san+fran...

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In classic Google Maps you could find a multi-leg route by searching with the syntax "from:san francisco to:los angeles to:new york" [1] whereas in new Google Maps the same query just shows you San Francisco [2].

The new Google Maps will do multi-point routes [3], but by default when you enter San Francisco to Los Angeles it chooses flights, and hides the option to enter a multi-point route. You have to switch to car directions to get the option to enter more than one point, and enter them one at a time not use the nice from-to-to syntax.

Pretty crap for power users - but I guess ad-supported products make their money by being mass market, and catering to power users isn't very important.

[1] https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=from:san+francisco+to:los+a... [2] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/from:san+francisco+to:l... [3] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/San+Francisco,+CA,+USA/Los...

Thanks for the clarification.

It also bugs me that there's no way to enter the mode of transportation as part of the URL query string. I'd love to be able to use smart keyword syntax like:

  from London to Cambridge by bike
  
  from Glasgow to Manchester by bus

Another example would be how google did sunset Google Reader. That also struck me as a product that was aimed at people who are rather similar to Google employees.

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