EuroBillTracker

Hi,

I'd like to present a little side project which I've been working on in the past few months - you can now view your personal dot- and hitmap on Google Maps.

Simply append ";engine=gmb" to the URL of your map. For example here are my maps:

- Dotmap: http://eurobilltracker.eu/map/usernotes ... engine=gmb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Hitmap: http://eurobilltracker.eu/map/userhits. ... engine=gmb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Currently no other maps are supported.

The project is far from finished, which is why it won't be integrated into the main site for now, but advanced enough for public testing. There are lots of possibilities for improvements, e.g. other ways to display data (ya know, originally the famous dots have been just a crutch), more customizing, some filter options, etc. Feel free to suggest additional features.

Especially I'd like to get some feedback about the following topics:

- browser and OS compatibility (tested with latest versions of IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, Opera on Windows Vista and XP)
- existing features and the resulting user experience (resizability, map automatically centered on home town of user)
- performance

There are already some known minor issues, especially about the performance. Huge hit maps will be slow, especially in IE. There's not much I can do about it (already spent ages on this), if it bothers you, try using a browser with better Javascript performance. Also the auto-sizing is a bit too ambitious on very small resolutions.

Let me know what you think,
Marko

Hi!

It seems to be a cool project! Nevertheless... I simply cannot see my/your/anyone's dots

I use widows XP with Iexplorer. May that be the problem? I should try from a different computer...

Very cool feature! Could you make some of the green dots a little brighter. Finland's map is a darker green colour which makes it hard sometimes to distinguish a dot from the background, see for example Puupenny's or my own map.

Works surprisingly "smooth" with IE6 here at work, i.e. initial load of your map took less than 7 seconds and to zoom in and out about three seconds. Not too bad! I did not notice that the map automatically centers though, it shows a total of the Europe map. But perhaps that's due to being located in central europe?

Very cool feature! Could you make some of the green dots a little brighter. Finland's map is a darker green colour which makes it hard sometimes to distinguish a dot from the background, see for example Puupenny's or my own map.

That's because Google maps shows the "Terrain map" at start-up for some reason. Click on "Map" in the upper right corner to get the classical style Google Maps map with a less green background color.

Cool additional features I can imagine: Possibility to filter the hits, provide a link with each hit line that takes you to the note report.

Cooool......

But the "World-Dots" are slip one to the north and east... on my map look at Tenerife. Now I have Dots in the Ocean

But to zoom in into my Hitdots is an adventure

Jes wrote: It seems to be a cool project! Nevertheless... I simply cannot see my/your/anyone's dots

I use widows XP with Iexplorer. May that be the problem? I should try from a different computer...

But you have a map to look at. I don't see anything except for a white screen inside of the usual map frame.

Mac OS 10.5.8;
FF 3.5.5;
DSL 16k;

Alles wunderbar, sehr schnelles Erscheinen, sehr schnelles Navigieren, sehr gute Darstellung.

Danke für diese wundervolle Arbeit.

Freundliche Grüße
Volker

Jes wrote:Hi!

It seems to be a cool project! Nevertheless... I simply cannot see my/your/anyone's dots

I use widows XP with Iexplorer. May that be the problem? I should try from a different computer...

Now I can see it... from a different computer it is GREAT!!

Nerzhul wrote: Especially I'd like to get some feedback about the following topics:

- browser and OS compatibility (tested with latest versions of IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, Opera on Windows Vista and XP)
- existing features and the resulting user experience (resizability, map automatically centered on home town of user)
- performance

Browser: IE 8.0.6001.18828 256bits
OS: Vista

Existing features: all ok.
Performance: ok

Comment on the side: The hitmap still stays a mess when you have loads of hits. Hope to see the hitmap in dots also in this feature.

This would be a great addition to the EBT-site.

Welldone Marko!!

Nerzhul wrote:Hi,

I'd like to present a little side project which I've been working on in the past few months - you can now view your personal dot- and hitmap on Google Maps.

Simply append ";engine=gmb" to the URL of your map. For example here are my maps:

- Dotmap: http://eurobilltracker.eu/map/usernotes ... engine=gmb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Hitmap: http://eurobilltracker.eu/map/userhits. ... engine=gmb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Currently no other maps are supported.

The project is far from finished, which is why it won't be integrated into the main site for now, but advanced enough for public testing. There are lots of possibilities for improvements, e.g. other ways to display data (ya know, originally the famous dots have been just a crutch), more customizing, some filter options, etc. Feel free to suggest additional features.

Especially I'd like to get some feedback about the following topics:

- browser and OS compatibility (tested with latest versions of IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, Opera on Windows Vista and XP)
- existing features and the resulting user experience (resizability, map automatically centered on home town of user)
- performance

There are already some known minor issues, especially about the performance. Huge hit maps will be slow, especially in IE. There's not much I can do about it (already spent ages on this), if it bothers you, try using a browser with better Javascript performance. Also the auto-sizing is a bit too ambitious on very small resolutions.

Let me know what you think,
Marko

I like it.. About the performance. Not sure if the maps are preloaded.. But if it would that would ofcourse make a huge huge difference, however probably to demanding on the server load. Might be an idea for county hitlists. and the europe and worldmap. In that case only some 20 maps have to be preloaded.

Might be better if the current hitmap stays but this feature will be implanted for one hit only (which will popup on request). If only one hit will be drawn i expect it to be waaaay faster. Like mils pointed out, It's really challenging to browse trough that complete hitmap and i wonder if it's really intresting to see 200+ hits on one map. it's just to messy.
Alternatively you could make the colour of the line vary depending on the speed.. for instance. Red is fast, green is slow.. and everything in-between.

The dotmap could use an overlay. In case you wanna know where to go for a certain dot.

I like it very much , great job again!!

Funny thing my printer refuses to print the sheet LOL

€€F wrote:I like it very much , great job again!!

Funny thing my printer refuses to print the sheet LOL

Might be that it is too large?

Try to print a screenshot

Very nice work. Seems to be working smoothly with Firefox in Ubuntu

I'm sure that's another one feature which will help to plan dothunting trips

Very nice. Works well on Safari, Mac OS 10.6

Very cool feature, although only the dots map is being really useful when one has more notes.

Too bad that on the world map the dots are missplaced from correct location. Or maybe I missed the instructions on how to handle this?