Appearance
Venues and the map
Planet4's Food spot and Activity spot widgets are backed by real map data: search for a restaurant or a climbing gym, read its photos and hours, add it to the vote, and see every suggestion on one map with live standings.
The two venue widgets
- 🍽️ Food spot — Where should we eat?
- 🎳 Activity spot — Where should we go?
Add one from the widget menu (each can exist once per chat). They start empty; the crew fills them by searching. Nova can also add spots on its own — see Nova's venue suggestions.
Adding a place
Open the widget and tap ＋ Add a restaurant (or ＋ Add a place). A search surface appears:
Search area. A line reads Searching near Brooklyn with a Change link, or Searching everywhere with Set area. Tap it to type a city or neighborhood and Save. The area applies to the whole crew and any member can set or correct it. If nobody has set one, it's derived from the rough areas members chose to share in their profiles, or inferred by Nova from the chat.
Search. Type at least two characters into Search for a restaurant / Search for a place and results appear as you type: name, address, ★ rating and review count. Tap ＋ Add on a result to put it on the vote (it turns into ADDED). Show more results loads another page. If the place isn't found, ＋ Add "…" as typed adds whatever you wrote as a plain option.
✦ Suggest. The blue pill in the search box runs a one-tap search based on the crew's preferences — the cuisines people have set in their profiles for food, their interests for activities. Results appear under Suggested for you.
ⓘ Details. Every search result and every option already on the vote has a details button. See Place details.
List / Map. Once results have map locations, a toggle switches the results into a small map inside the widget. Tap a pin to see the place and add it.
The same place can't be added twice — if two people race to add the same restaurant, it becomes one option.
Place details
The details sheet (swipe down to close) shows:
- A photo carousel — swipe or use ‹ ›; tap the magnifier for a full-screen view.
- The name and type, with chips for ★ rating (reviews), price level and Open now / Closed.
- A short description, then 📍 address, 📞 phone (tap to call), 🌐 website, and Open in Google Maps ↗.
- Hours for the week.
- Add venue at the bottom (or Added ✓ if it's already on the vote).
Voting on venues
Venue options vote like any other widget — see Voting. Each option shows its address and rating, and you can open its details at any time with ⓘ.
The map
Every venue option with a map location, from every venue widget in the chat, is plotted on one map so the crew can compare where things are.
- Phone: tap the map button at the bottom of the widget rail. A full-screen sheet titled Where we could go opens with a search bar, the map, and a list of places below it.
- Tablet / desktop: the map is a permanent pane beside the chat. » Collapse map shrinks it to a strip; Expand map brings it back.
Reading the pins
| Pin | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | The leading option in its widget |
| Terracotta | Any other option on a vote |
| Blue with + | A search result not yet on any vote |
| Thick blue ring | Your own pick |
| Purple circle | Roughly where a member is coming from (only for people who chose to share their area; always a fuzzy ~1 km circle, never an exact point) |
On wide screens the legend doubles as filters: All · Leading · Your pick · Coming from. A strip along the bottom summarises the Leading place and Your pick, and ☰ View list opens a list of every pinned place.
Places without a map location aren't drawn; the map says how many are missing.
Doing things from the map
Tap a pin to open its details with a context-aware button:
- An option already on a vote → ✦ Vote for this location, or ✓ Your pick — tap to change.
- A search result → ＋ Add to "Where should we eat?" (creating the widget if needed).
- A place you tapped on the base map itself — any restaurant, park or venue the map shows — → ＋ Food poll or ＋ Activity poll to add it to the matching vote.
Search from the map. The bar above the map — Search for a place to add — drops results straight onto the map as blue pins. Focus the empty field for ✦ Suggest: Food / Activities. ✕ Clear map pins sweeps search results off again.
If search isn't available
Occasionally you'll see Too many venue searches for now — pause a moment, then try again; wait a few seconds. If the map can't load in your browser, the widget says Map unavailable here — switch to List to pick a place and everything else keeps working. In the unlikely event that place search is off entirely, the widget falls back to a plain Add a place text field.