FYI: Places.js API Cities Polyfill

[theprojectsomething]

I've been putting together a small library to polyfill type: city searches. It's intended as a drop-in fix post API shutdown, bypassing any refactor or provider-switch nightmare scenarios.

polyfill demo: https://theprojectsomething.github.io/re.places/#algolia
repo: https://github.com/theprojectsomething/re.places

If anyone is currently using the cities functionality and would be open to giving the polyfill a spin I'd be very happy for the feedback.

Similarly Algolia people, if you had any suggestions / feedback they'd be appreciated. Particularly if I've overstepped the line with anything in the repo.

Install is as simple as:

import 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/places.js@1.19.0'
// activate polyfill - script must be served locally and imported directly after places.js
import '/re.places.algolia.js'

Background: We've been using places for a few years now @CitizensGBR to allow users to indicate where in the world they are from (simple city geocode, we don't need an address). I got the email earlier in January reminding about the API sunset and figured there might be a simple solution for a simple use case.

[JonathanMontane]

@theprojectsomething Thank you for building this, I played around with it a bit and it seems to work quite nicely for popular cities. Happy to see people trying to build alternatives to Algolia Places.

[theprojectsomething]

Thanks @JonathanMontane .. yes the cities are based on a refined db (you can browse it on kaggle or build it in the repo) but you could easily augment / substitute this. If you have any further questions, comments or suggestions feel free to open an issue in the repo. Thanks!