Mepo is a fast, simple, hackable OSM map viewer for mobile and desktop Linux! Free your navigation now.

Mepo is a fast, simple, and hackable OSM map viewer for desktop & mobile Linux devices (like the PinePhone, Librem 5, postmarketOS devices etc.) and both environment's various user interfaces (Wayland & X inclusive). Environments supported include Phosh, Sxmo, Plasma Mobile, desktop X, and desktop Wayland. Mepo works both offline and online, features a minimalist both touch/mouse and keyboard compatible interface, and offers a UNIX-philosophy inspired underlying design, exposing a powerful command language called Mepolang capable of being scripted to provide things like custom bounding-box search scripts, bookmarks, and more.

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Install User Guide Demo Videos

Features

  • Fast & usable in resource-constrained environments:
    • Mepo launches quickly and runs quickly on the PinePhone and other resource-constrained devices.
    • Mepo renders using SDL which keeps things fast and lightweight; also as a bonus: portable.
    • Built in a non GC'd language (Zig) with an aim toward careful memory usage and allocations/deallocations
  • UNIX-philosophy inspired design - scriptability via mepolang:
    • Mepo's UI is built to do one thing well: download & render maps. Extra functionality is enabled via its command language / API (Mepolang).
    • Reduces overall application logic complexity, handing over to shell-scripting integral features like map bounding-box searches, location search lookup, bookmarking, dropping pins, routing, rebinding keys, and more.
    • Uses single abstraction (central pin API via Mepolang) for indicating and placing user-defined coordinates graphically on the map (e.g. same mechanism used generically between POI searches, bookmarks, routing, etc.)
    • Existing OSM tools for search & routing like the Nominatim, Overpass, and GraphHopper APIs are integrated through bundled shell scripts; customize to your heart's content or write your own scripts for custom integrations.
    • Bundled scripts utilize menuing and user input functionality via zenity rather then implementing application-specific input logic.
  • Offline operation as a first-class feature:
    • Downloading of maps for later offline use can be done non-interactively through a command-line flag.
    • Users can download based on a bounding-box or a user-specified radius from a specific point for multiple zoom levels.
    • Offline usage is a primary usecase and should be treated as such, we can't assume a user is always online.
  • Supports touch AND keyboard-oriented operation:
    • A map application must of course be usable with a mouse / touch, but the keyboard as a tool for map navigation has been overlooked in in map applications.
    • Provides vi-like (& customizable) keybindings out-of-the-box.
    • Should be usable in touch-oriented environments like the PinePhone and similar where a physical keyboard isn't present.
    • Compatible across multiple Linux mobile environments including: Phosh, Plasma Mobile, Sxmo, and Swmo. Being written in SDL ensures good support and portability to other future environments as well.