A Better Legend

For a while now the legend on CommunityWalk maps has been bugging me. When I clicked on a category I wanted to see that category and hide the others, but it would simply toggle that category, usually hiding it, instead.

Well I finally came up with a reasonable interface to make it show that category instead of toggle it. I had to add in some checkboxes to ensure that the toggling capabilities were still there, but I don't think it distracts from the interface too much and is very functional.

Also I added in arrows in the Legend and Map Overview buttons to help communicate that they can be shown or hidden easily.

Just some small enhancements that I think will make the interface considerable more intuitive.

Small Enhancements and Bug Fixing

For the last week or so I've been fixing bugs and releasing small enhancements to help clean up the interface. The bugs are mostly centered around the Pathing release and will continue for a little while now (there are still a few known bugs). The enhancements have been focused around making the application easier to use and include:

1) If you enter an address that is incomplete then the system will return the list of results to the same place on the screen as where you entered the information. It feels quite a bit cleaner this way.

2) You can now edit your map's title directly from the map page. This is one that has been really needed for quite some time now.

I'll be continuing with these smaller enhancements and bug fixing for a little while to ensure everything is stable before moving on to the next large feature.

Paths Are Here!

It took a little longer than I expected, but I've finally finished the core functionality for the paths release. This is one of the core features that I've wanted to get into the product for some time now.

It comes along with a new floating widget that calculates the distance of the path and provides some additional navigation buttons that allow you to surf along the path easily. In addition to being draggable, the widget can be collapsed down to one line to get out of your way.

There are still a few known bugs that need to be ironed out (sorry Safari users) and some enhancements that I'd like to get in there to better support paths (printing, a path tab for the right hand side, and path support on the blog code snippet), but there is enough there already to justify a release.

Check out this example map I created a few weeks ago, "A Saturday Afternoon Walk Around San Francisco"!

This release also includes an upgrade to version 2 of the Google Maps API, so CommunityWalk now has all of the European road maps that Google Maps has.

I'm Still Here

Just so people don't think I have stopped developing CommunityWalk, I wanted to send along a quick update. I am putting the final touches on the Pathing Release, which will provide a host of functionality around drawing paths on the map. So everyone who's created a bar crawl map, mapped out public transportation routes, created a personal map for their bike route to work, etc. can finally have the path mapped out in order with distance calculations.

Right now I am trying to find a good stopping point. This is one of those features that could go on forever, so I am trying to thin it down and get the core functionality stable so that I can release it. I am *hoping* it will be done within a week or so.