StreetFix is one of Kevin Wells’ various applications that make use of Wget to talk to the application programmer interface (API) of a remote website and pass information back and forth. Doing so may in some cases be more practical and/or easier than attempting to use the site’s web interface.
In this case the remote site is FixMyStreet, a website designed to make it easy to report problems in your local area; the user doesn’t need to know where problems in their area should be reported, only the postcode. With that and details of the problem itself, FixMyStreet takes care of the rest – and by communicating with the site, StreetFix therefore allows problems to be reported from the RISC OS desktop.
Similarly, the application can be used to see the last ten problems that have been reported in your area, and one of the new features in the latest release – version 1.05 – relates to this. The last release saw the ability added to launch a program that recognises GPX files, so that a map can be displayed showing those reports – but in this version it’s possible to do that with the individual problems.
Kevin has also modified the code to make it easier to adapt the application to make use of FixMyStreet-based websites for other countries.
If you find any of Kevin’s software useful, you could always consider rewarding him for it by buying some merchandise or with a small contribution.
