Have a MapAList Feature Suggestions? Post it Here!

[The Map Commissioner]

Tell us what features/functions would make your mapping experience better and we'll add them to the ever growing enhancement list.  

We can't promise immediate turnaround, but we'll do our best.  

Note that right now we're 100% funded by your donations which are much appreciated (and tend to accelerate development if you know what I mean ).

[Akeem]

I would like to use iFrames in the popup remark field of a map-point.

The alternative (copy-paste a whole html webpage) becomes very heavy for a spreadsheet with a few 100 lines.

That is all.

Keep up the good work!

[Help]

Hey Akeeem.

Well, you are in luck!

The following map using iFrames in the pop-up:
http://mapalist.com/Public/PublicMapViewerShell.aspx?mapid=30968

This is the value I entered into the spreadsheet:
<iframe src='http://dc.gov/' height='200' width='300'></iframe>

See the tab, "Embedded Images and Links" in:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=psz4RpbbhJ0NcQKGGBVqbCQ&hl=en

Thoughts?

[Akeem]

Super,

I just used it and it works perfectly.
Now I'll have to come up with a new feature request...

[Matt]

I'd like to be able to change the color and shape of the pins

[The Map Commissioner]

Hi Matt,

Currently, in Step 4 of the Map Creation Process, you can change the pin icon(s) that will be used on your map.  There is a "..." button to the right of the default pin image that you can click on to get a choice of many icons/colors that are available.  You can then preview your map to see what the pins look like.  If you need to make a change you can simply go back and do so and then preview again.  This process can be repeated until you are happy with the results.

This process is touched on in the most recent tutorial post focussed on advanced grouping at http://mapalist.blogspot.com/.
 
Once the map is created and saved, there is no way right now to change the pin images.  In order to do so you would would have to recreate the map.

Matt wrote:

I'd like to be able to change the color and shape of the pins

[Alex]

Perhaps I've missed it, but if I haven't, I'd like to be able to merge separate spreadsheets onto one map, using different pins (somewhat like defining a key field in one large sheet). Is this possible, or could it be possible shortly?

Thanks very much for your hard work on this great project!

[The Map Commissioner]

Alex wrote:

Perhaps I've missed it, but if I haven't, I'd like to be able to merge separate spreadsheets onto one map, using different pins (somewhat like defining a key field in one large sheet). Is this possible, or could it be possible shortly?

Thanks very much for your hard work on this great project!

Interesting question Alex - one we have not heard before.

At the moment, MapAList is designed to only pull data from a single sheet within a Google Spreadsheet (GSS) document.  That being said, there is a creative workaround worth thinking about...

If you setup your GSS with multiple sheets, one of which is a "master sheet", I think you could accomplish your goal.  You would simply have to use simple formulas to reference cells in the multiple sheets.

For example, let's say you have 3 sheets.  Assume the first sheet contains addresses of wedding guests on the bride's side of the family, the second sheet contains addresses of family on the groom's side of the family, and the third sheet contains addresses of the bride and groom's friends.  The first step would be to add a column to each sheet that would act as the differentiator.  The column on the first sheet would contain the word "groom", the column on the second sheet "bride" and the column on the third sheet "friend".

The next step would be to create a master sheet and reference the data on the other sheets - essentially pulling the addresses and the differentiator attribute.  You could leave blank rows (as many as you like) on the master sheet that reference data that will be populated later on the sub sheets so that updates to the sub sheets would automatically update the master sheet.

Then it's simply a matter of using MapAList to map your master sheet and updating your sub sheets as needed (they would then update the master sheet accordingly).

Was that confusing?  Yeah, I know.  So here's an example GSS to look at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pqacvdx2XdPf_bdcgu90BZw

[Alex]

Hey,

   Thanks for the reply. It wasn't confusing, the cell referencing makes sense. However, the problem I have is that I have data in different spreadsheet /files/ in Google. Now, I know in good ol' vanilla Excel that I could reference OUTSIDE a workbook, using a formula, but I'm not certain this is even possible in Google Docs.

   Is there a chance there's a workaround for this as well, or hope of future developments? Because I'd probably rip my eyes out if I had to merge 175 spreadsheets into one doc.


Thanks!

[The Map Commissioner]

Glad to help Alex.

You can reference outside a workbook using Google Spreadsheets - referred to by Google as a "cross-workbook reference".  

Here's how: http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=98757&topic=16775

Hopefully this will save you some time.  Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help.

[Alex]

Thanks very much!

[Help]

Hey Commish,

As everyone can't edit the GSS you shared, we (or at least I) was not able to see the formula you used, can you share it explicitly with the forum?!?

Brian

UPDATE: strike that, just saw in your later message.  Thanks!

[q_man]

Date handling and other ideas

I am having trouble trying to map date ranges to pin colours on my maps. Is this feature supported? So far the only way I can get results is by using the simple settings and the column distinct values operator but this results in such a huge number of different markers - one for each day over a number of months that it is next to useless, any operators I use in the advanced map settings configuration result in no values being shown.

 To my mind a value range operator would be very valuable in this context especially if it recognised and could work with date formatting. The operator could simply have a value range or date range option (between) and have the user specify the beginning and ending values of the range in two boxes or in one box with a "-" between.

If you think you can achieve this then I could make a donation as the main reason for my wanting to use map a list would be based around this function to plot my sales leads by date received and priority for planning purposes.

Other features that would be nice would be the ability to alter an operator in the list on the advanced settings page and see the result without having to delete it and create a replacement as you now do. This would improve usability a lot.

It would also be great to be able to have a number of different display operators set up for a map which would be like formatting templates you can switch between to view the same data in a number of different ways. For example, I would like to see my leads prioritized by date with a colour/icon corresponding to leads of certain ages like over 3 months old, 2-3 months old, 1 month old, less than two weeks old etc. I wold then like to be able to click a button to visually compare a view of the same leads with color/icons assigned according to their lead source or priority. It would be fantastic to also be able to have tick boxes beside the icons & labels to allow me to include or exclude certain leads from the view. Say I clicked on the the over three months old pin type key it would then only display those leads with that pin type on the map. I could then switch to my other template and see just those leads over 3 months old with pins coded to identify their lead source or priority. A fantastic and flexible way of visualizing your data.
I'm sure I could keep going with more ideas but I don't want to dilute this message as there is far and away enough to begin with here.




Many thanks.
Quentin brown.

[The Map Commissioner]

Hey Quentin,

Thanks for your suggestions.  You have some great ideas here and we will add them to the future features list.

You're absolutely right, we do not explicitly support what you are looking to do with dates in our base solution.  That being said, I have a suggestion that just might do the trick...

How about creating a new column in your spreadsheet that derives the age of each lead?  This can be done by using the following formula assuming the date of the lead is in cell A1:

 =Today() - A1

For example, let's say you got a lead on 1/1/09 and that date is sitting in cell A1 of you spreadsheet  If you put the formula above in cell B1 the result would be the number 39 (as we are currently 39 days into the year).  Therefore, you lead is 39 days old.

Since you are now working with a number rather than a date you should have no problem using the greater than and less than operators in the base MapAList solution.

You could even take things a step further in your spreadsheet and write another simple formula that takes the number of days and calculates a value.  For example, you could say:

=if(A2, >30, "Cold", if(a2,<=30,"hot",0))

This basically says that if the lead is greater than 30 days old then label it "Cold" whereas if it is 30 or fewer days old than label it as "Hot".  You can use more nested "if" statements if you like to derive additional values.

You could then create your map based on the attribute you have derived (Cold/Hot) in MapAList.  This would eliminate the huge number of different markers.

Hope this is helpful...

[q_man]

Thanks for the suggestions, that seems like a good solution, if I had
more experience with using spreadsheets I should have thought of that
myself!
I'll give it a try right away.

Thanks,

Quentin.

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:08 PM, The Map Commissioner (via Nabble)
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hey Quentin,
>
> Thanks for your suggestions.  You have some great ideas here and we will add
> them to the future features list.
>
> You're absolutely right, we do not explicitly support what you are looking
> to do with dates in our base solution.  That being said, I have a suggestion
> that just might do the trick...
>
> How about creating a new column in your spreadsheet that derives the age of
> each lead?  This can be done by using the following formula assuming the
> date of the lead is in cell A1:
>
>  =Today() - A1
>
> For example, let's say you got a lead on 1/1/09 and that date is sitting in
> cell A1 of you spreadsheet  If you put the formula above in cell B1 the
> result would be the number 39 (as we are currently 39 days into the year).
>  Therefore, you lead is 39 days old.
>
> Since you are now working with a number rather than a date you should have
> no problem using the greater than and less than operators in the base
> MapAList solution.
>
> You could even take things a step further in your spreadsheet and write
> another simple formula that takes the number of days and calculates a value.
>  For example, you could say:
>
> =if(A2, >30, "Cold", if(a2,<=30,"hot",0))
>
> This basically says that if the lead is greater than 30 days old then label
> it "Cold" whereas if it is 30 or fewer days old than label it as "Hot".  You
> can use more nested "if" statements if you like to derive additional values.
>
> You could then create your map based on the attribute you have derived
> (Cold/Hot) in MapAList.  This would eliminate the huge number of different
> markers.
>
> Hope this is helpful...
>
> ________________________________
> This email is a reply to your post @
> http://n2.nabble.com/Have-a-MapAList-Feature-Suggestions---Post-it-Here%21-tp2098841p2299990.html
> You can reply by email or by visting the link above.
>
>

[PaulTosto]

It's be great if the legend could be interactive, so you could click one or more legend links and see only the map point that correspond to the legend icons clicked.

[The Map Commissioner]

Got it - responded to this request in the other thread but figured I would post here as well...

Making the legend "live" or "dynamic" allowing users to include/exclude points or groups of points is definitely a good idea and one that we have heard before.  It is part of our future features list and we will be bumping it up in priority based on your request.  

That being said, development and support are 100% funded by donations to the site...as a result it may take some time.

Happy mapping.

[pdc111]

Hi;
Is it possible to have the pins automaticly be numbered or a different letter on each one? That way if you print the map, you could match address with a list.

[The Map Commissioner]

Hi pdc111,

Right now it is not possible to create pins that have unique letters/numbers so as to align with the address list.  It's an interesting idea and something that I will take the our development team/add to to our ever growing enhancement list.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[Tom]

Congrats to the MapAList team.  I think you have a cool product here.  A couple of ideas...

1.  From the Maps > Manage tab, it would nice to be able to navigate back to any step rather than just change the parameters displayed there.  Now, I may have to create a new map just to change something on the current one.

2.  It would be nice to be able to have a parameter that allows the map to default to Big View.

Thanks,
Tom