CommunityWalk Blog

Marker Limitations

2011-08-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

We're putting some temporary limitations on the number of markers you can add to a map. We're having trouble keeping the site stable with people creating very large maps, so for now we're limiting the number of markers on a map to 100.

Changes In Progress

2010-04-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

Over the next few days we will be making a number of changes to our infrastructure. There may be intermittent downtime while this is in progress. We hope to have everything stabilized with a few days.

We apologize for the inconvenience in the meantime.

GMapCatcher

2010-03-28T21:25:00.001-07:00

We get a lot of requests from people looking to use their CommunityWalk map offline. We haven't tested this with CommunityWalk yet, but it looks like it should work for using the maps without an Internet connection:

http://code.google.com/p/gmapcatcher/

Beautiful Topography

2009-11-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

We've just enabled the "Terrain" option on all map pages. You can now see the terrain in addition to the "Map" or "Satellite" views.

IE7 Fix

2009-11-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you've ever received the message "Internet Explorer can not open the web page" when trying to go to CommunityWalk or bulk editing your map then you should be able to do so now.

We've finally hunted down and believe we have fixed the issue that was causing this. If you continue to see it, though, then please let us know.

Opera Support

2009-09-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

We've finally gotten around to providing support for the Opera browser (which has made dramatic leaps with regard to performance and quality). CommunityWalk should work now with Opera, but if you see any issues please let us know.

Upgraded Servers

2009-08-20T22:05:00.001-07:00

We've just completed an upgrade of CommunityWalk's servers. Hopefully we'll see some nice performance improvements from the upgrade.

Email Bug

2009-01-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

We've just discovered a bug with our email system that was preventing emails from being sent out properly. If you were missing a verification email, this is why.

The problem has been fixed and emails are being send out properly now. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Performance Upgrades

2008-12-17T17:43:00.000-08:00

We will be working on some performance upgrades to the site in the coming weeks. If you notice and improvements or degradations to the performance of your map please let us know.

CommunityWalk on the IPhone

2008-08-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

I will be attending the Outside Lands concert this weekend. For those who haven't heard of it, it's a huge concert in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco featuring bands like Radio Head, Beck, Ben Harper, Wide Spread Panic, Drive By Truckers, and dozens others.

I also recently got a 3G IPhone with GPS so I've been looking for an easy way to take advantage of CommunityWalk with the IPhone to give me a custom map to find my way between stages at the concert.

So I created a map of the different stages:

http://www.communitywalk.com/san_francisco/ca/sf_outside_lands/map/283341

and I figured out a way to get this to show up in the Google Maps application on the IPhone so that I can take advantage of the GPS.

If you click the link below on an IPhone then the Google Maps App will open up and the search box will be prefilled with this:

http//www.communitywalk.com/xml/kml/283341

If you insert a colon after the "http" and hit search then the map will load will all of the correct markers. For some reason if you include the colon in the original url then it doesn't open the Google Maps App correctly...

Here's the link:

http://maps.google.com/?q=http//www.communitywalk.com/xml/kml/283341

So just click the link and then add a colon after the "http" and hit search.

Slightly Improved Printing

2008-07-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

We've finally gotten around to fixing a bug with printing maps where the list of locations in the print out was out of order. We've finally fixed it and made it so that they will adjust their order if you have multiple tabs selected in the map.

Explore Functionality Disabled

2008-06-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

As CommunityWalk grows we want to ensure that we give our paying customers as reliable and fast a service as we can. We've made a number of improvements to facilitate this over the past few weeks and we've temporarily disabled the explore functionality. Most of our customers display their maps on their own websites so the explore functionality was not getting much use regardless and it was the worst offender to any reliability issues we've been having so removing it shouldn't affect people too much and should help provide very fast and reliable service going forward.

Remember Me

2008-01-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

We've been so caught up in development for Wedding Mapper that we haven't been able to give CommunityWalk much attention over the last few months. So we just wanted to write to let people know that we are still going and are making sure that CommunityWalk is as stable and reliable as possible.

We also finally got around to adding in a "Remember Me" feature that will make it so that you don't have to log in to the site every time you visit. This has been the most request for some time so we hope it will make up for some of the recent neglect.

Server Migration Complete

2007-10-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, I think we are out of the thick of it. We've migrated the servers, put out more than one fire, and managed to maintain all data through out. We were worried that some data had been corrupted, but we were able to restore it with out problem.

From here on out we should be able to scale without issue. Hopefully :)

Server Migration Issues

2007-10-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

We've found an issue with our migration that took place last night. Some of the data that was imported was corrupted during the import. We need to reimport the data. This means that we will likely lose all information that was entered into the system this morning.

We are working on a way of restoring the information from this morning, but it does not look good right now. If we do lose this data then we will work with everyone affected to minimize the inconvenience this will cause.

Server Migration

2007-10-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

We are planning on migrating CommunityWalk's servers at noon today. Hopefully there will not be much downtime.

Upgrading Servers

2007-10-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

We are in the process of moving CommunityWalk to new servers where they can get more resources and hopefully provide a smoother and faster user experience. There might be some hiccups along the way so please bear with us.

In fact yesterday we had a problem with our email servers and email stopped coming through to the communitywalk.com domain. If you sent an email to us in the last 24 hours you'll need to send it again as we did not receive it. We are receiving email now, though, so it should be successful if you send it again.

Important Message

2007-09-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

We recently found a bug with our new embeddable maps that was preventing them from displaying properly on Safari. We've addressed the issue but it required changing the code snippet. So if you have a CommunityWalk map embedded on your website you'll need to get the latest code snippet from CommunityWalk and replace your existing code snippet.

Handling Growth

2007-08-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Over the next few weeks we will be deploying CommunityWalk to a new hosting solution that we believe will give us the ability to grow indefinitely with minimal problems. Until this new solution is fully deployed and all the kinks are worked out there may be some downtime. We will do our very best to minimize this as much as possible.

Important News

2007-08-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Important: To take advantage of this new functionality you will need to replace your current CommunityWalk code snippet with the one that is now on the CommunityWalk site.

Google Searches Redirect to Your Website

We've just released an enhancement that has significant ramifications for anyone who has a CommunityWalk map embedded in another website, especially professional maps.

Now, when you have a professional map embedded in your site, if someone does a search on Google for one of your map locations, CommunityWalk will redirect them to the page on your site where the map is displayed and will make that location display on the map.

We've embedded a sample professional map above. If you were to do a search in Google and one of the results was for a location on this map it would redirect your here and select that location on this map. Try it out with this search for the Turin Airport in Italy. Click on the first result and you'll be redirected back here with the airport selected on the map above.

Change How Your Map Displays with Different Links

Now you can also change the way your map displays without touching your code snippet. If you link to a page on your website that has a CommunityWalk map embedded on it (any version, professional or free, except the free blog version), you can include instructions for the CommunityWalk map in your url. A few examples are below. They will link back to this page with the map displaying something different.

Zoomed Out, Zoomed In, In Hybrid Mode

Reviews and Ratings

2007-08-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

A while back we introduced reviews and rating into Wedding Mapper, allowing people to rate and review the venues and vendors they used in their weddings.

We've been meaning to get this into CommunityWalk for anyone who might want to rate and review things on their map, but haven't had time to get around to it, until now.

So now you can find functionality for rating and reviewing locations when you edit a location on the 'Details' tab.

Check out this example of the rated and reviewed Westfield Mall in San Francisco.

Synced Up Tabs and Legend

2007-08-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

After releasing our latest functionality that allows you to hide categories by default, we received a few requests from people that this functionality be better synced up with the list of locations. After playing around with the list a bit we realized that it really should be completely synced up with the legend.

So now when you hide a category the location list collapses to hide that category as well. And when you collapse a category on the location list it hides that category in the legend.

This feels like a better solution, so we just want to say thanks to all the great users out there for pointing out this inconsistency and helping us make the product a little better.

Thank you!

Hide Categories by Default

2007-07-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

We've had a ton of requests for this one.

You can now, finally, hide categories by default. So if you want your map to start out with one out of the twenty categories on your map displayed, simply hide all the other categories and click "Save Default View". Every time you come back the categories will still be hidden.

You can also generate links to a view of your map with only certain categories displayed. Simply hide the categories that you want hidden and then click "Link to this map". The bottom link will have instructions in the link for hiding the categories.

So give a try. From all the requests we've received for this enhancement we hope this will be a nice little win for a lot of people.

Polygons and Categories for Paths

2007-06-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

We've been getting requests for the ability to create polygons on a map for sometime now and we were finally able to find the time to complete these requests.

So you can now create polygons on your map. Check out the example below. Just create a path and then click "Options" to find a "Is a Polygon" check box. Check that and you'll immediately see your path transformed into a polygon. It's pretty cool!

Just as we were about to release this we got a request for categories on paths, so we decided to slip that in as well. Now you can categorize paths to let people know what kind of path it is or, for that matter, what kind of polygon it is!

Running Smoothly

2007-06-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

After some growth pains earlier in the year, we've managed to make enough improvements to stabilize the site. It's been running smoothly for about a month now with no hiccups. Now we can get back to working on a few enhancements for the site.

First up, "Search Nearby". It will allow you to search near any marker on a map to get driving directions to and from a location that was not placed on the map by the map creator.

A Goal to Give Back

2007-05-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Many people don't realize that there is only one person behind CommunityWalk and Wedding Mapper. I do all the development, support, maintenance, etc. I've had help along the way from consultants and designers, but for a while now I've been handling everything myself.

This is not an easy job, and with CommunityWalk's growth it has been difficult for me to stay ahead of the scalability curve. So I have been unable to fulfill one of my goals with CommunityWalk: to open CommunityWalk up to educators and non-profits for free, professional use (without ads).

So I want to make this goal public. As soon as I can stabilize the site, making it easily scalable, and as soon as I can afford to hire some help to deal with support and further development of the site then I will open it up for educators and non-profits for free use.

So please help me get the site to this point. Spread the word about CommunityWalk to realtors, local business bureaus, etc. that will be able to make use of the professional version of the site. And please tell everyone you know that is getting married about Wedding Mapper!

Slowness on the Site

2007-05-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

We've been seeing significant, unexpected traffic coming from a few different sources over the last few days and, unfortunately, the site is not equipped to handle such a spike in traffic right now. So many people may be experiencing slowness on the site right now. We expect this to last for the next day or so.

We've been aware that this might occur for some time now and have been preparing for it. Unfortunately it looks like our preparations were not implemented quite in time. I hope that we will be able to stabilize the site and equip it to handle such traffic spikes in the coming weeks, but it may be a bit further out than that.

In the meantime please accept my apologies for any slowness you encounter. It is our absolute highest priority to deal with it as soon as possible.

A Tab for Paths

2007-04-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

For the longest time now if you had a path the only way to select it was to click on it. We've finally created a tab for paths that lists out all of the paths on a map, allows you to show and hide them, and displays distances.

We had lots of ideas around how to implement this tab, but, in the end, we just decided to do the simplest thing possible. So it's nothing to exciting, but it is very useful from a practical standpoint.

You can see an example of this here (you need to click "Paths" to get the paths tab):

A Saturday Walk Around San Francisco

To add a "Paths" tab to your map click on "Advanced" under "Edit Settings" and select paths from one of the drop-downs.

New Ad Space

2007-03-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

We are playing around with the ads a little bit to see if we can't achieve significantly better click-through rates with a few tweaks. We've moved the ads up on the screen just a bit. I realize that this might be a little controversial. If this does not significantly improve click-through rates then we'll move it back down to the bottom.

Copy Maps with Glee

2007-03-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

You can now copy any map you have. Just click copy from your "My Maps" page. It will create an exact duplicate with all locations, photos, paths, comments, etc.

We've gotten a lot of requests for this one, especially since you can not yet bulk import path information. I know this is not a complete solution for the lack of path support when bulk importing, but at least now you can duplicate a path.

UK Bulk Import

2007-03-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

This one has been a while coming, so my apologies to all those "across the pond". You can now, finally, bulk import your data using addresses in the UK!

Reorder Categories at Will

2007-03-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

We've just released an enhancement that will allow you to reorder your categories to be in the order you want. This has been requested for quite a while so I hope people find it useful.

To reorder your categories simply edit your map's settings, click on "Categories" and drag them into the order you want!

Create Your Own Icons!

2007-02-26T21:53:00.000-08:00

This one has been a long time coming. You can now add your own icons to your CommunityWalk map. I've created a little example below, expressing my appreciation to Google for their mapping application, which CommunityWalk is built on.

(sorry, i'm not exactly a graphic designer...)

Faster Maps (again)

2007-02-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

We've reworked the performance enhancement that was causing so much pain last week and have redeployed it. It seems to be much more stable now, so you should once again notice maps loading quite a bit more quickly.

We're also trying to figure out the issues with out credit card processing system so that we can put these stability issues to bed and move back on to features. Hopefully we'll get it figured out within the next day or two.

The Storm Has Passed

2007-02-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, we think the DOS storm has passed. In the end it may have benefitted CommunityWalk a great deal as it ferretted out an issue with the credit card processing system that we did not know about. We have not yet resolved this issue, but we have put in place some preventitive measures that should keep the site stable until we can figure out these last few issues.

Thanks to everyone out there for their patience over the last week. We should be pretty stable and snappy going forward.

Evidence of a Denial of Service Attack

2007-01-30T18:44:00.000-08:00

We've found evidence that we've been under a denial of service attack for the last day. We've isolated a few of the problems and have put in place some preventitive measures. We'll do our best to keep the system stable while we fight this off.

I Think We've Found the Culprit

2007-01-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

I think we've found the culprit of the system instability. It looks like the performance enhancement we put in place last week was preventing Internet Explorer from caching images properly, causing significantly more (like 100x) images to be requested from the server. This was totally weighing down the server and led to much of the instability we have been seeing.

We've pulled out the performance enhancement and we are going to look at it some further to see if we can't get it back in there with Internet Explorer caching properly.

My apologies to everyone who has been having trouble on the site for the last week or so. We should have caught this earlier.

Reprioritizing - Focusing on Stability

2007-01-30T09:41:00.000-08:00

We've decided to drop everything and work on the current stability issues CommunityWalk is seeing. We've seen steadily increasing traffic for some time now and we've been able to handle it very well up until the last few days. Now it seems we've reached a threashold and we need to figure out a more scalable infrastructure.

We believe we have the answers and we are going to drop everything else to focus on making sure the site is stable and fast.

This will affect a few other enhancements that we have been promising to people. It shouldn't delay them too long (another week or so), but they will be pushed back a bit. If we don't have a stable and fast system then the best enhancement in the world won't make any difference.

Server Issues

2007-01-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

Over the last week we've been having a number of server issues. As far as we can tell this simply seems to be due to the steadily growing traffic, so it's not a terrible thing. Still we need to address it and we are going to right away. I've included our current thinking below, but it is a bit technical in nature. Still I want people to know that we are actively addressing these issues.

[Technical Answer]
Right now it appears that the biggest problem is that our Apache server is spawning too many threads to handle the many requests coming through. We are going to look into potentially moving all images to S3, to reduce the load on our Apache server or potentially purchasing another dedicated application server for CommunityWalk. Right now we are leaning towards the S3 solution, but we are still not 100% sure that it would solve our problems.

A Little Bit Faster

2007-01-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

We've just released an enhancement after much experimentation aroung speeding up the maps. You should ideally see your maps load considerably faster now.

If anyone experiences any problems with this please let us know.

Custom Urls

2007-01-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

We've just released an enhancement that will allow you to create a custom url for your map, so the Pivotal Lunch Spots map is now:

http://www.communitywalk.com/pivotallunch

instead of

http://www.communitywalk.com/map/1144

although the old url still works.

To give your map a custom url just click "Edit Settings" and fill in the custom url field, making sure to check for availability.

Help Us Get The Word Out

2007-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, we need some help.

We're trying to build a profitable company so that we can continue to offer high quality products like CommunityWalk and Wedding Mapper at great prices (or for free). We're not going to be able to achieve this goal unless we get the word out more, so we need your help.

In particular we are looking for help getting the word out about Wedding Mapper. The product is getting some rave reviews from those who use it, but we are struggling to get the word out to the larger audience of engaged couples out there.

All we ask is that you send an email to anyone you know that is getting married. More than likely they will be enormously appreciative becuase you just saved them from the hassle of figuring out to let all their guests know where to go for their wedding.

So let everyone you can know about Wedding Mapper (www.weddingmapper.com)!

We've got many other great products in mind that we'll be offering for free or at equally great prices, so please help us get this going!

Going for the "WOW" price

2007-01-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

I've been debating this for a long time and I am finally going to pull the trigger. When I originally priced CommunityWalk's maps I asked a lot of people and found a very fair price of $9.95.

Well I've decided to forget about "fair" and go for "WOW"!

You only live once 'eh?

So I am dropping the price on CommunityWalk maps to just $2.95 a month.

This may very well back fire on me, so I'm only promising it will stay at this price for the next two months. If it doesn't lead to considerably more sales I may bring the price back up. If you purchase a subscription to a map now, though, then it will stay at $2.95 a month.

I will be reducing the price for all existing customers immediately. Your accounts should reflect the new price starting tomorrow.

Here goes nothing...

Experimenting with Image Ads

2007-01-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

We've decided to do a little experimenting with the ad formats we use to see if we can not get a better click-through rate then we already have. So you should now see images in the bottom left corner of your map on occasion. I'd be interested in hearing feedback from anyone if they have any to offer about this.

Server Issues

2007-01-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

CommunityWalk is having some server issues right now. I am working with our hosting company to resolve the problem and get the site back up. I don't have too much information yet, but will update this post as soon as I have more information as to the site's availability.

Sorry about any inconvenience this is causing anyone.

And We're Back...

We are working on diagnosing the issues that caused this outage. We'll do everything we can to ensure it does not happen again. If it does happen again we may have to move our servers to a new hosting company but we are hoping it will not come down to that.

Sorry again if this caused anyone any inconvenience.

Experimenting with Speeding Up the Site

2007-01-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

We're experimenting with a few changes to CommunityWalk that are intended to speed up page loads. It's a little difficult for us to tell whether or not the changes are positive under all circumstances on all browsers, though.

So if you are experiencing longer load times please let us know. If you are experiencing faster load times please let us know as well. If the changes end up being less than great we'll likely change them back.

Note: While releasing these changes on Saturday afternoon we experienced a few hiccups, so if you the site seemed very slow or was behaving strangely this was likely the cause. Sorry if this caused anyone any inconvenience.

A New Year, A New Site. Introducing Wedding Mapper!

2007-01-02T14:24:00.000-08:00

It's a new year and I've just released a new website built off of CommunityWalk. The new site, Wedding Mapper (www.weddingmapper.com), has been designed to specifically handle mapping out your wedding. You can easily map out where the ceremony is, where the reception is, where hotels and airports are, etc.

I built Wedding Mapper on top of the existing CommunityWalk technology, giving me a chance to try out a new user interface. It also represents the beginning of a few major enhancements to CommunityWalk, including custom icons.

So if you're getting married check out Wedding Mapper (www.weddingmapper.com) and start mapping out your wedding!

You can see an example map here:

http://www.weddingmapper.com/map/39455

also check out the list view of the same map:

http://www.weddingmapper.com/list/39455

Multi-Point Directions

2006-12-21T18:29:00.000-08:00

This one has been a long time coming. You can now finally get multi-point directions (from point A to point B to point C) on your maps. Just click "to here" or "from here" on any location's bubble and you'll see the new directions interface. This one was a tough interface to make simple and intuitive so I'd love to hear any feedback people have about it.

Professional Maps Feedback

2006-12-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for providing all the feedback on the professional maps. Two things have become clear from the feedback:

My concerns about marker limits were more or less unwarranted. Most of the professional maps are not adding hundreds of markers to the map. I created the 50 marker limit to discourage this behavior, but it looks like it was not necessary.
People want flexible bulk packages (10 maps, 20 maps, etc).

So I've removed the marker limit on the maps. It is now just $9.95 per map per month. This will take effect on all existing accounts right away.

I am also looking into creating different packages for those who want more than one professional map. If you are interested in a bulk package please email us at sales@communitywalk.com and let us know what size package you are interested in. We may be able to set you up right away.

Every Location Has A Page

2006-11-29T17:08:00.000-08:00

Most people don't realize it, but every location on every map in CommunityWalk has it's own webpage. This webpage allows for people to easily link directly to a location. It also makes it possible for a search engine to index the content of each individual location, allowing people to search for that location.

You've probably never seen one of these webpages because if you try visiting one it will simply redirect you back to the map it belongs to. Once you are on the map it will select that location on the map. The effect is that you can provide a link to any location on your map directly. Also search engines can direct people to the content they want.

On larger maps this is crucial. If someone is searching for content that exists in 1 out of 425 locations on a map and they get brought to the map without that specific location selected then they'll never be able to find the location they were looking for (and yes in-map search is on it's way).

Since search engines index each of these pages individually people can search for each individual location's content, making it easier for people to find your content! Many people are already taking advantage of this fact by providing content that is useful to the general public and referring visitors to their real estate service, hotel webpage, etc. It is a very effective technique.

Here are a few examples. Each link will bring you directly to a different location on the "Pivotal Lunch Spots" map:

Little Delhi
Specialty's Sandwiches
Colibri Mexican Bistro
Cafe Infusion

I will be creating a tutorial on how to take create links like this yourself tonight. You'll be able to find the tutorial on the CommunityWalk tutorial page.

Fixed Issue with Adding a Photo to Your User Profile

2006-11-29T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've just fixed an issue that was causing problems when some people tried to add their photo, company logo, or other image to the user profile page. You should be able to upload photos now without error.

New Commercial Maps for Professional Use

2006-11-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

I've just released the commercial map functionality. It allows you to easily remove the ads from your map for professional use. The easiest way to take advantage of this is to:

Create a map. It is usually best to get the map as close to completion as possible, but you can continue to edit your map after you've removed the ads.
Click "Remove Ads" under the "Edit Settings" tab or from your "My Maps" page.
Enter in your credit card information.
Presto, the ads are removed from your map.
You will be charged the next day for your map and on that day each month going forward.
You can cancel at any time.

I am also looking into package deals for unlimited maps and unlimited markers. If you are interested in this please contact me at sales@communitywalk.com.

Read more about professional maps!

Check out a sample professional map.

Take Credit For Your Maps

2006-11-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months I've received an increasing number of emails from people who want to know more about a map, or compliment someone on a map, or get added to a map. Although I can certainly continue to forward these messages along, I thought it would be nice to provide a means for people to take credit for their maps.

As I thought about it some more I realized that this could be a great place for all of the realtors, non-profits, schools, businesses, and other organizations and professionals to display information about themselves and provide links out to other sites.

Lastly the new user page serves as a place for people to find other maps that people have created. Some people spend a great deal of time creating incredibly interesting maps and it is great to be able to see what else they've done.

So take credit for your maps and build your own user page!

Here are a few examples:

My User Page

Pivotal Computer System's User Page

Advanced Tutorials: Adding Audio To Your Map

2006-11-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

When I first saw someone put a little audio player on their map with the voice of a local person describing their little shop, or a tourist attraction, etc, it really impressed me. It made such a difference in how I viewed the map. It really connected me to that local place.

I've been meaning to create a series of tutorials for some time now, providing people with some instructions on how to get the most out of CommunityWalk. There are a few features which are not very intuitive, but are very powerful, such as the ability to include a flash audio player in a location or map description.

So I've created the first tutorial. It describes how to use the Odeo Studio (studio.odeo.com) to record audio and include it in your map. Hopefully people will find it useful.

Check out the tutorial: Add Audio To Your Map

And check out the sample map here: Sample Map with Audio

Useful Enhancements

2006-11-07T22:05:00.000-08:00

I've just released two enhancements to CommunityWalk that are fairly simple, but have been heavily requested so I hope people will find them useful. Both are a bit rough around the edges, but they will be getting better over time.

The first is a little button on the path widget that lets you get driving directions along a path, from point to point. I'd like to integrate driving directions into CommunityWalk more completely, but this is a good first step.

The second is a new view of location information. It is a simple list of locations on a map. It is intended to provided a lighter weight means of viewing location information, with links to the map for each location. Sometimes a simple list like this can provide a great way to view this kind of information.

I am still working on the list view, so you can't get to it through the application yet. If you want to get a sneak preview, though you can go to:

http://www.communitywalk.com/map/list/YOUR_MAP_ID

so if a map is at:

http://www.communitywalk.com/map/1

then the list view is at:

http://www.communitywalk.com/map/list/1

As usual if anyone finds any issues with these enhancements please let me know!

Frustrating Experiences

2006-11-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

Every now and again I go on to CommunityWalk and have a poor experience, making me realize how much more work I need to do. Today I was trying to create a map of my Sunday walk around San Francisco using IE and there were a bunch of problems. I've managed to clean up most of the issues now, but I can only imagine how many people have had similar frustrating experiences.

So I want to thank everyone who has been sticking with me through out this. I am absolutely dedicated to making CommunityWalk the best product available for building interactive maps. I am going to keep it simple and make it perform as well as physically possible. I am going to build a team around it and really nail it down. So stay tuned!

[Update] I've been doing some more testing and have found a few other issues with the paths functionality. I will be addressing these as soon as I can. If anyone finds issues please let me know. It is a huge help.

An Alaska Vacation and a Brainstorm

2006-10-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend create a map of her trip to Alaska last night and commented about she didn't like the order of the markers in the marker list. I told her that she could change it, using the order field in the details section of each marker, but she wasn't exactly thrilled by that possibility. She just wanted there to be a better natural order. She didn't even realize that they were in alphabetic order.

This wasn't the first time I've had this feedback from people, so I decided to sit down and brainstorm how to make it better. The best solution I could think of was to organize the marker list by category name, breaking it up a bit and making it feel more organized. Luckily this was easy to do, which is usually a very good sign.

Check out the new marker list on her Alaska Vacation Map.

A New Front Page

2006-10-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've just released some changes to the front page. I've wanted to change the front page for some time now as I keep getting feedback from people who are coming to the site for the first time that they aren't sure what you are supposed to do on the site.

In order to fix this problem we focused on making the front page much more simple and clear. Hopefully this will encourage people to dive right into making maps. We've also made a space for featuring a great map right on the front page, to give some more exposure to maps other than the top 10 and let people see what a map looks like right off the bat.

I'll likely be making some tweaks to it over the next week or two, so it might change a bit still. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the changes. Feel free to email me (jared [@] communitywalk.com) or leave a comment on the blog.

Search and Exploring

2006-10-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

I've added in a search box to the top of each CommunityWalk page except for the map page. It uses Google to search CommunityWalk maps and return results within CommunityWalk. Although I'd rather get an internal search solution integrated, this will have to do for now.

Now that this search functionality is in place I've replaced the live search function on the Explore page with an Explore City box that lets you zoom into a city or town without having to click all the way in. I've been playing around with this a bit already and it feels like a much better exploring experience!

A Little Bit Faster, A Little Easier to Share

2006-10-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

I've just released two enhancements to the application.

The first is a performance enhancement that should speed up map loading times by as much as 40%. The site already feels quite a bit snappier to me.

The second has been a long time coming. It lets you email the link to any map right from the map page. Just click "Email Map" in the toolbar under "Share/Export". Hopefully this will encourage people to share all of the great maps on CommunityWalk!

Code snippets for all

2006-10-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've finally gotten around to exposing the code snippet code on the map page. So now people can more easily include a map that they've created or that someone else has made public in their blog or website. Just click on the "Code snippets" link under the "Share/Export" tab.

Unfortunately the code snippets are still not the most intuitive functionality, so I think there is still some work to do there.

Quick Edit Mode and Caching

2006-10-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am working hard to try and get CommunityWalk performing as quickly as possible. In the past week I've done a few things along these lines:

1) Made the queries on the explore page faster. The performance still is not fantastic on the explore page, but it should be much better now.

2) Cached external views. This should make looking at your map via another website or a blog using one of the code snippets faster. You won't see the difference the first time you look at the map, but subsequent times should be considerably faster.

3) Quick Edit Mode. This was in the application a while ago. I pulled it out because I thought it would not be necessary any more. but it looks like it still is. This setting is under the "Map Settings" tab on the map page. It lets you turn off "Full Refresh Mode" so that changes you make to the map will not make all of the panels on the left side of the page refresh. For larger maps this can make the process of editing a map much more efficient.

There is still a lot more to come. Performance is consistently one of my highest priorities. Unfortunately it is a bit difficult to keep up with given the growth of the site. Thanks to everyone for sticking around during some of the rougher patches during the recent growth spurt :)

Up and Running

2006-09-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

There were a few hiccups this afternoon, but we now have CommunityWalk up and running on its new servers. This new setup should handle CommunityWalk's growth for some time to come.

In addition to new servers we've been working hard over the past few weeks to make the site more usable and professional looking. There are quite a few changes that you'll notice right away (the bubble's design has changed, there is a new wizard when you create maps, all settings pages got a face lift, etc). If anyone has any feedback, positive or negative, please let me know so that I can figure out what needs more work and what is good.

There's more to come. I am trying to ramp up the effort on CommunityWalk to try build on the fantastic response I've heard from so many people using CommunityWalk. I have many plans to come, so stay tuned!

Move In Progress

2006-09-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

We are in the process of moving the servers as we speak. There are a number of issues that we are working through right now. Hopefully everything will be back up and snappy soon. Sorry about the inconvenience this might be causing anyone.

Server Upgrade

2006-09-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

I will be moving CommunityWalk over to its new servers today, so there may be a few outages over the course of the day. I will try to minimize the downtime as much as possible.

I will also be releasing some changes to the site. Mostly focused around a redesign of the bubble that pops up above each marker on the map. I've also built out a wizard to help people get started with their maps. Personally I usually hate wizards, but in this case it really seems to help people start using the application more quickly. I've tried to make it quick and painless so you can get on your way, but if it is too annoying for anyone please let me know so that I can try to make it better.

I'll write more about the changes later. They are pretty obvious, though, so you should notice them as soon as we get the application moved on to the new servers.

Mestdagh's Travels

2006-09-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have to say I am a little jealous of the Mestdaghs. Judging from their map, Mestdagh's travels in 2006, they are quite adventurous. I only hope that I can be as adventurous when I have a family. It looks like a lot of fun!

CommunityWalk Is Hiring

2006-09-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

CommunityWalk is ramping up and is looking for a great developer to join the team. The developer should be in the San Francisco/Bay Area, or able to commute easily to downtown San Francisco. Here is the job description I've been posting on various job boards around the Internet.

Lead Developer

Based on Market St in San Francisco (near all forms of public transportation), CommunityWalk is building a revolutionary suite of mapping services that bring simple and personalizable map functionality to a broad range of users and applications.

We are an agile software company, utilizing advanced development and testing processes, allowing us to iterate quickly and produce high quality products.

We are looking for a great programmer who thrives in a dynamic and fast-paced environment. The candidate must be self-motivated, a fast learner and an excellent communicator.

We prize passion, intelligence, humility, and a great sense of humor. These are necessary qualities for success when pair programming in this very social startup environment.

Requirements:
Five+ years experience building dynamic, scalable web applications that provide a great user experience. Ideal candidates will have in-depth familiarity with:
- Javascript
- Ruby on Rails
- CSS, DHTML
- MySql

Email jobs@communitywalk.com with a brief cover letter and a resume if you are interested in this position.

Someone's World

2006-09-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I come across a map that provides a real unique view into a place I will likely never get a chance to visit. I really love these maps, that provide a glimpse into someone's world and I find it tremendously interesting.

Today I came across one called, "I See Muncie", that has some great photos of everything under the sun in Muncie, Indiana. Check it out.

Server Outage

2006-09-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

This morning CommunityWalk experienced a server outage from 4 AM PST until 8 AM PST. Over the past few months CommunityWalk has seen a significant increase in traffic such that the current infrastructure is quickly becoming incapable of handling it. Today's outage was the result of this problem. Fortunately I recognized this problem a month ago and began setting up a new infrastructure to handle the increased load. Unfortunately, there have been some problems getting the proper equipment and setting it up, such that CommunityWalk has still not been switched over.

I apologize to anyone who experienced the outage. I realize that it is tremendously annoying. I promise that getting CommunityWalk up and running on the more robust infrastructure (which should handle CommunityWalk's growth for a long time), is the absolute highest priority right now. I fully expect to have it up and running by early next week.

Again sorry about the inconvenience.

- Jared

An Excellent Map Of NYC

2006-08-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

The New York Minute Show map has been around for a while. In fact it recently made it to the first page of the most popular maps on CommunityWalk, so it doesn't really need any attention from this blog. Still it is an excellently done map, rich with photos, videos, audio tours. It is well categorized, making it easy to find specific types of things, so if I want to see just the museums in New York City I just click the "Museums" link in the legend and presto everything else disappears.

All in all it is just a very well done map that deserves some attention. Check it out by clicking the title at the bottom on the mini-map below:

Beautiful Lake Como

2006-08-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

In my humble opinion, Lake Como is one of the most stunning places in the world. Of course I am part Italian and studied for a semester in Milan, so I am a little biased. Still it is worth checking out if you are ever in Italy. If you can't get to Italy, though, then you can check out this great map of the area!

Here's a smaller version of the map. I highly recommend clicking through to the larger version to see all of the great photos of the region.

Paths in Your Blog

2006-08-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

With all of the functionality that I want to build into CommunityWalk it has been very difficult to prioritize and sometimes simple, obvious things fall through the cracks. Luckily there is a great community out there that helps me find these things.

As was the case with paths showing up on the blog code snippets. I released the pathing functionality with every intention of getting that done sooner rather than later, but things came up and this obvious functionality fell through the cracks. Well, thanks to a few emails from people in the community I realized the mistake and was able to sit down yesterday and crank through it. So now paths show up in the "simple" maps for blogs.

Local Voices

2006-07-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Brett Atkins, who runs AccessLocalNet, has been using CommunityWalk to create maps of local communities. I was just looking at one of these maps and stumbled across a great little widget that he puts into his maps that have the voice of the store owner describing their store. I love this. It really brings the whole thing to life.

You can check it on his map, Access Franklin

You can get use these widgets for yourself at AudioAcrobat.

A little better printing

2006-07-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

I am continuing to make little improvements in printing. This time I've made it so that the numbers on the icons print properly. I want to make this sync up with the printed descriptions of the icons, but unfortunately it's not there quite yet. It will be soon though.

A Little More Control

2006-07-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

I've been receiving requests for the ability to control the order of the markers as they appear on the map for some time now. I've been wrestling with exactly how to accomplish it and, in lieu of a better solution, I simply decided to add it in for the time being.

So now there is an "Order" field that is accessible from both the marker balloon (at the bottom when editing a marker) and the bulk edit. For existing maps I highly recommend using the bulk edit to change the order of the markers as editing each individual location is quite a pain.

I'll be keeping an eye out for a better interface for manipulating the order (drag and drop is at the top of the list), but for the time being at least the functionality is there.

Significant Performance Upgrade

2006-07-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

I just released a performance upgrade that improved map performance times by as much as 10x depending on the browser. I rushed the upgrade out just a bit as I found out that Google is going to be doing quite a bit on their end as well to make loading a map with a few hundred or thousand markers faster. So I will likely be pulling this performance upgrade out of the system if Google integrates it directly into their code. That said, if you find bugs with anything in the meantime please do report them. I am not sure when Google will be releasing their enhancements, so my upgrade may be in place for a while.

The upgrade also gave me a chance to change around the numbered markers a bit. Maps with numbered markers will notice a significant improvement in the load time of their maps because they are no longer downloading one image per marker. Rather I've overlayed text on top of the image, so there is only one image per marker color.

At the same time I changed the numbering scheme to be more traditional, instead of using letters and numbers the markers now just use numbers.

Again please report any bugs that you find and I will address them right away.

Fixing Up Bulk Edit

2006-07-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to all of the users out there that reported bugs in the Bulk Edit functionality. It helped me a great deal. There are still a few issues out there that I know about and I'm sure there are a few that I do not know about (please report them if you find them), but I was able to fix quite a few today. These include:

- Exporting the website and directions fields
- The ability to clear a field (e.g. delete the description)
- Dealing with unresolved addresses better
- Handling photos better (required adding fields for the height and width of a photo)

Again please report any other issues you find. It is an enormous help.

Some Minor Printing Enhancements

2006-07-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

Improved printing continues to be a high priority for the site. I just released a few minor enhancements to make the maps a bit more printable (there is still a ways to go).

1) Drag titles around. If you want to display the titles when you print but the titles are overlapping you can simply drag them to where you want them to be.

2) Hiding the titles and descriptions of markers not shown on the map. Now when you are zoomed in on an area of the map only the titles and descriptions of the markers shown on the map will print out.

I realize that these are minor enhancements, but they are part of a larger vision I have for improved print capabilities. Hopefully the rest of the vision will be realized soon.

Improved Internal Linking

2006-07-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

I might be the only user that takes advantage of internal links because they are so hidden in the application, but they are a powerful feature that I think more people would find useful if it was easier to figure out. The idea is that you can create a link in a description on your map that changes the state of the map. You can cause the zoom level to change, the tab to change, the map to recenter, etc. Personally I use it on almost every single map I've ever created.

In an effort to make it a little more user-friendly I've added in a control panel that shows up when you click "Options" after clicking "Link to this view/marker". The control panel allows you to specify which parts of the map state you want to change. This way you can change the zoom level while leaving the map type alone.

I realize that this is still a little confusing. It is intendended for advanced users. I would like to make it even easier to use, but for the time being this will have to do. Hopefully it is enough to allow more users to take advantage of it.

The map of places I have lived is a great example of internal links in action. They can be placed in marker descriptions as well as the map description and provide total control over the map.

An Example Internal Link:
internal_link('This is an internal link', '01@02180000')

A New Tab

2006-07-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

I've just released a new tab for listing off the markers on a map. It displays a photo for each marker that has photos, making it easier to see which markers have which photos.

When a map is first created this tab is now the only default tab, but you can change this to add back in the old tabs. For older maps you will have to edit the settings and choose the new tab, "Markers".

You can see the new "Markers" tab on the Torino Winter Olympics Map.

I've also made it so that if there is just one tab the tabs do not display at all to save space. You can see this on any new map.

The New Map Page

2006-07-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

For some time now I've been frustrated by the fact that having controls on the bottom of the screen causes too many people to turn away from CommunityWalk not understanding how to use it. So, with the fantastic help of Arena Reed (www.visualarena.com) I decided to redesign the map page to try and make it more intuitive.

Included in the redesign are areas on the page that are dedicated to displaying the map title and description and map comments (on the bottom of the map). I think it makes sense to break these out so that the tab area can be used to list of markers exclusively.

The old design can still be seen by replacing "map" with "oldmap" in the url for any given map (eg. http://www.communitywalk.com/map/1 becomes http://www.communitywalk.com/oldmap/1).

I'm going to continue to make changes to this page and would love to hear feedback from people. Also please report bugs as I've already found a few.

This doesn't affect the various iframe solutions that the site offers, including the commercial map ones. I will likely leave these views alone for the time being, except maybe to round the corners of the tabs. If people want to see changes in these please let me know.

Redesigned Map Page

2006-07-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

I just released a redesigned map page that flips the navigation around to the top and left. The idea is to make it easier for first time users to find the controls (this has been a big problem). You can still see the old map page at

http://www.communitywalk.com/oldmap/(your map id)

eg. http://www.communitywalk.com/oldmap/1987

More about the switch in just a bit (I've already found a few bugs that I need to fix).

Photo Support In Bulk Edit

2006-07-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've added in limited support for importing photos into the bulk edit functionality. You can't upload photos, but you can reference photos on another website like Flickr. For the time being you can only reference one photo per location, but I hope to expand this and make it essentially infinite in the near future.

Integrated Bulk Import/Edit/Delete

2006-07-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've been testing the bulk import/edit/delete feature quite a bit over the past few weeks, using it to create a few maps very quickly (like this one (below) I created from an article in the New York Times in order to get a better idea of where everything was that the article mentioned). I think I worked out the majority of the bugs, but I'm sure there are still some hanging around. So if you find any please let me know.

Regardless I think it is ready for integration into the actual application, so you can now access the bulk functionality from the configuration page and the map page by clicking "Bulk edit".

Huge Maps

2006-06-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

As I had feared, as soon as I released the bulk importer people used it to import enormous amounts of data. This was the primary reason why I was holding off on building this feature. The problem is that most browsers can not handle more than a few hundred markers before they really start to crawl or even crash.

So I've built in a 500 marker limitation into the bulk importer for the time being. I do want to solve the performance issues, but they are very technically challenging.

If you do have a large map you should definitely change the icon type to use unmarked icons. This will speed up the map significantly. I am actually in the process of making it so that the system automatically makes this change if a map has more than 100 markers. You can make this change yourself by logging in and clicking "Edit Settings" for any given map. The specific settings is under the icons type section.

Happy Hour Map - Created With Bulk Import

2006-06-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

No sooner had I released the bulk import feature (still in beta - more...) than an excel file with a list of bars in San Francisco and their various happy hours finds its way into my inbox. So of course I used it to test out the new bulk import feature. It took a little tweaking (you can find the original and tweaked versions in this excel file - the tweaked version is the first sheet), but basically worked like a charm.

Check it out:

San Francisco Happy Hours

Bulk Edit - Sort Of

2006-06-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

I am putting the final touches on the new bulk edit functionality for CommunityWalk. It is a flexible interface that lets you import data from, export data to, and edit and delete data in Excel. It provides bulk geocoding capabilities as well so you can take an excel file full of addresses and out them on the map.

Here's the catch. Although the functionality is all there, there are still some bugs and I need to figure out a way to explain all of the functionality in a clear way. So there is no link to the functionality on the site. You need to manually enter it to go there. So if the url for you map looks like:

http://www.communitywalk.com/map/100

the bulk edit feature can be found at

http://www.communitywalk.com/bulk/edit/100

There are no instructions yet (I'll be adding them in shortly) and it may be buggy, so you'll want to back up your map (export it to Excel) before using the editing capabilities. For importing, though, it should be good to go.

Please send feedback, either on this blog, in the forums, or by emailing me at communitywalk@gmail.com. Let me know if you find bugs or if there is functionality missing from the feature.

Once I feel comfortable with it I will be integrating it into the application more closely.

Updated Satellite Imagery

2006-06-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

Google has just released some updated satellite imagery (actually it's the most significant update they've ever done, providing high resolution imagery for many places in the world.

While I am sure there are many maps on CommunityWalk that take advantage of this new imagery, this map of sites in Australia (below) is the first one that I've noticed. You should definitely check it out zoomed in.

Local Search Integration!

2006-06-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you get inspiration and have to drop everything to take advantage of that inspiration. Well when I saw that Google had released an API that allows you to integrate local search into other applications, inspiration struck. Admittedly, integrating local search into CommunityWalk is a pretty obvious idea, but inspirational nonetheless.

So there you have it. Local search integrated into CommunityWalk. Want to add a local coffee shop to your map, just search for the name of it, click on one of the results and presto, your map now has a marker with that location and all of the fields filled in.

I also included a field for searching for cities and towns that will zoom you down to the correct level and you can take it from there.

You can find all of this functionality under the "Build This Map" tab. Just click "Search".

Check out this map of Starbucks locations in San Francisco I whipped in a few minutes. I'm sure I don't have all the Starbucks in the city yet, but I've got quite a few already.

A Better Legend

2006-05-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-05-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Another Round of Features

2006-04-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

We're going to start developing another round of features on Monday, so things might be quiet for a little while. Once we finish this round though, we'll be poised to really do some damage. So stay tuned!

New Beta Commercial Maps Program

2006-04-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time coming, but CommunityWalk is finally ready to begin offering a beta program for commercial maps.

The commercial product comes in two flavors, both with the same functionality as the free versions without the ads:

1) With Tabs
2) Without Tabs

Each product is available through a code snippet that can easily be added to any website. The maps are still created on the CommunityWalk website.

For the duration of the beta program the commercial maps will be offered for free. When we have a credit card processing system set up all members of the beta program will be given an additional month to decide whether or not to pay. The price will likely be between $9.99 and $29.99 a month. (Update: it is now looking like the price will be based on number of markers on the map instead of the number of maps - (eg. $19.99 a month for up to 100 markers)).

If you are interested in participating in the beta program please email me at communitywalk@gmail.com. I will respond as quickly as I can.

Important
CommunityWalk is still in development. I personally respond to all customer service requests as quickly as possible, but it is important to note that we are still developing the product so it may occassionally have bugs.

We will also be enhancing the commercial products as we go. This blog will carry all news about future enhancements.

Opening Up

2006-04-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days I've put in place a number of enhancements to allow people to create maps without ever signing up for the service. All you need to do now is click "Create A Map" and build away. As long as the browser stays open you will be able to edit it.

Once you close the browser the map will still be viewable but you will no longer be able to edit it. If you want to save the map you can simply login before closing the browser and the map will be assigned to your user account.

A Little Spring Cleaning

2006-04-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

For some time now the "My Communities" page has completely intimidated me. I've really struggled with figuring out a good design for presenting all of the options clearly. Today I became fed up and just decided to try my best to get it cleaned up as much as possible.

Along with renaming it to "My Maps", I also broke out each map's settings onto a different page so that there was less information to try and digest on that one page. This is likely not the final design for this page, but it does help organize things a bit better. Hopefully it will be a little less dorky and intimidating for new users as well.

Ghost Markers

2006-04-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I put in place a performance enhancement that made is so that only markers that were in the current viewable area of the map were placed on the map. This meant that if you were zoomed in you would not have to deal with the performance degradation that comes with having a large number of markers on the map.

Unfortunately there was a side effect. If you moved around enough, zoomed in and out, and switched tabs you could find yourself in a situation with ghost markers. These markers would just hang out on the map, not attached to anything, not clickable, and not removable.

So I've pulled back that enhancement and brought it in for another round of testing. I realize that there are some maps out there that are getting very large, and getting those maps to perform well is currently the highest priority. Hopefully we'll have a more stable performance enhancement ready soon.

New Map Controls

2006-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of obvious changes that need to happen to CommunityWalk (eg, the "My Communities" page really needs to be cleaned up). For a while now I have been wrestling with how to improve the map page as I think it is also in need of some work. I haven't been able to find a solution I am happy with so I keep pushing it down the priority list.

Recently, though, I received a recommendation to just put a marginal improvement into the control at the bottom of the screen to, at the very least, help people figure out the software a little easier.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and give it a shot. So I did. The result is on every map page now at the bottom of the screen and will hopefully clear up any confusion people might have about what these buttons do!

Please report any bugs that you find with the new controls. Also I would love to hear feedback about them!

It's Your Map!

2006-04-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

For some time now I have received fairly consistent requests from people who want more control over the descriptions on their map. They want to embed videos, show images, etc. Then, today, I read a review of CommunityWalk on LifeHacker that also made a point to say how unfortunate it was that users could not display videos on their maps.

Well that was the last straw. After much thought I decided to throw caution to the wind and open up the descriptions on all locations and the maps to whatever valid html (excluding javascript) that you want to display. I've also created another special function that lets you display embedded media alone in an infowindow.

Check out an example of this on my Guanajuato Mexico Vacation map:

http://www.communitywalk.com/map/1561#111331QU32NE10

I'll work on a tutorial for this, but in general any html goes. You should be warned as if you get too funky you run the risk of having it display incorrectly on a different browser, so be careful. The special functions are still the best way to go to ensure that you're content looks good across browsers. Here is what I did in the Mexico Map:

I basically used the media special function to wrap an image in a link to the larger media file, which is a flash file from YouTube. The image and the flash file are wrapped in single quotes. I realize that this is a little complicated so you might want to stick to basic html until I can put together the tutorial.