Coverground changelog

A quieter walk page

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The walk page showed three lines that all said where you were heading and how far it was. It now shows one: the stop you are heading to, with the guidance underneath. Screen reader users still hear the guidance as full sentences, unchanged. The label “current target” now reads “heading here”, and the wording fits cycling routes too.

The page now follows your browser's language unless you pick one with the switcher: a Dutch visitor on an English-language route gets Dutch buttons and guidance, with a note that the stops themselves are written in English. The language switcher is available on every step, and switching mid-walk returns you to where you were.

On iPhone and iPad, location can be blocked in the device settings even after you allow it in the browser. The permission step now explains where to find that setting. It also gained a Try again button, on every device, so you no longer need to reload the page after turning location on.

In dark mode, the map is lighter: streets, water and parks are easier to tell apart. The route line itself is unchanged.

Walk a route in your own order

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Out on a route, the arrow and the spoken guidance always pointed at the next stop in order. Now, opening a stop's information makes it your destination: the arrow turns, the distance follows, and the guidance tells you where you're heading. There's nothing extra to press — opening a stop is the choice. Arriving anywhere hands guidance back to the route, so there's no mode to remember or leave.

Because the route now follows the direction you are actually walking, you can walk it backwards. Start at the far end, walk to the stop before it, and from there it keeps offering you the next one on its own. You can also head back to a stop you have already visited; it will guide you there, and the visit is still counted only once.

A route you preview before publishing now says it is a draft, on the opening card and while you walk it, so it is clear the link is not live yet.

Your own icon, and a page with all your routes

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Two additions, available to beta subscribers on request — email beta@coverground.eu. When a visitor adds one of your routes to their phone's home screen, the icon can now be yours instead of the Coverground one — upload it under Settings.

You can also switch on a page that lists everything you have published, with a picture, a description and the distance, number of stops and whether it is a round trip. One address to share when you want to point at all your routes rather than one.

Sharing and publishing in one place

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

A Share and publish panel now holds the publish switch, the public link, the QR code and the embed code together. Until now the switch lived in Route settings while the QR code and embed code were only on the routes list, so sharing what you had just built meant leaving the builder.

Route settings save as you type, like the rest of the builder. The Save and Cancel buttons are gone — Cancel never undid anything anyway.

A new route now starts on the map: click to place your first stop and the route is created for you, instead of a dialog asking for a name before you can do anything. Rename it whenever you like, from the toolbar.

Start from a GPX file

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Already recorded the route on a watch, a phone or a route planner? Upload the GPX file and Coverground places the stops for you, names them after the nearest street, and draws a step-free route between them. You add the stories and photos.

After importing you get a summary of what was made: how many stops, over what distance, and — when the step-free route differs noticeably from your file — by how much and why, since we route around stairs and rough surfaces. If it took a turn you did not want, adding a stop along that stretch pulls it back.

The builder toolbar also gained a View link, which opens the route page in a new tab exactly as a visitor sees it.

A map-first route builder

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Building a route now happens on a full-screen map. The list of stops has become a panel that floats over the map, so you can open it when you need it and close it when you'd rather see more of the route. It stays the keyboard and screen-reader path to every stop, and remembers whether you left it open.

Editing a stop opens a panel beside the map instead of covering it. The stop you're editing slides into the part of the map that stays visible, so you can see where you are while you write. Closing it returns the map to the view you had before.

Publishing moved into Route settings, where it's now a switch, with a confirmation before a published route goes back to draft. The toolbar shows whether a route is published or a draft. There's no Save button any more: the builder saves as you work.

QR codes for published routes

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Every published route can now be downloaded as a QR code from the route list, as an SVG that stays sharp at any print size — on a sign at the starting point, a flyer or a museum label. Scanning it opens the walk page.

Visits that arrive by QR code are counted separately in the route's statistics, so you can see how much a printed sign is being used. This needs no query string and no cookie.

More accurate statistics

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Daily figures are now grouped by local time rather than UTC, so an evening walk counts on the day it actually happened, and a walk that crosses midnight is only counted once.

A walk that gets interrupted — the phone locks, the page reloads — now continues as the same walk instead of being recorded as a second one. Stops passed while the screen was off are counted once the walker turns up further along the route.

Less-accessible options, for those who want them

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Every route is generated to be step-free and walkable by everyone. But some places offer an alternative that isn't for everyone: a staircase that cuts a corner, a steep slope, a narrow passage. Route builders can now add these as alternative options, drawn on the map and labelled with what makes them less accessible.

On the walk page they stay out of the way until a visitor chooses "Show less-accessible options" on the map. The accessible route remains the default for everyone.

Route statistics

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Every route now has a statistics page: how many people open the route, how many start walking, how far they get stop by stop, and how many finish. The numbers update daily.

It's counting, not tracking — anonymous tallies only. Your visitors' location never leaves their device, there are no tracking cookies and no profiles, and the walk page now says so in plain words.

A sharper map

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The map — in the builder, on walk pages and in embedded cards — is now drawn from vector tiles, so it stays crisp at every zoom level and on every screen.

Finer control over stops and embeds

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Dutch and English

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Coverground now speaks both Dutch and English. The whole interface is available in either language with a switcher, and every route declares the language its own content is written in — so a route reads in its own language by default, wherever it's shared or embedded.

Account security

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Two-factor authentication is now optional — turn it on when you want it, from the Security page in your account. Passwords are held to a stronger standard too: at least 12 characters, and checked against known data breaches so a compromised password can't be reused here.

Walking a route, improved

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Out on a route, Coverground now guides you from stop to stop: it shows the distance to the next stop and tells you when you've arrived. Tap any stop — in the list or on the map — to read its story without leaving the page. Re-center on your location or the next stop, or zoom out to the whole route. On a phone, the guidance sits in a panel you can collapse to free up the map. Your progress is remembered as you walk.

Embeddable route cards

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Put a published route straight on your own site: paste a short snippet and a compact card appears, linking through to the full walk page. You can place more than one on a page, and cards show only on the websites you've approved — nothing loads anywhere else.

First public beta release

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Coverground replaces an empty, white page on the domain name. This first release lets you:

Routes are generated to be step-free and walkable by everyone. Your location stays on your device, Coverground and its data are hosted in Europe, and accounts can be secured with two-factor authentication.