show bubbles instead of markers depending size

[Gert]

is it possible at all not to show a marker with a name, but a bubble with the size depending on a numeric value in te row. for example if you have a list of 3 entries
city 1     100
city 2     200
city 3       50

the idea would be to show 3 circles on the map with a big circle for city 2,  a smaller 1 for city1 and a tiny circle for city3

much like Google analytics does to show the origing of people visting your site.

[The Map Commissioner]

Hey Gert - you bring up an interesting idea - essentially the concept of what we call "heat maps".  This is something that we have discussed internally and definitely see on the horizon longer term when/if we start utilizing flash/flex.

Right now we don't support the functionaliity you're looking for, but give us some time and stay tuned.

[Ian]

Hi,

This is exactly the functionality that I was looking for when I came across your site. I have a list of households (qty) by zip code... I'd like to see a bigger circle/bubble for the zip code with the highest quantity, and smaller bubbles for lower quantities.

In the meantime, I'd like to use different colored pins to indicate the quantities (ie. blue for least, orange for medium, red for most) but  I haven't figured out how yet. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Ian

[The Map Commissioner]

Hi Ian,

You could use different pins to indicate different quantities - though this would likely require an additional column in your spreadsheet.  I'd suggest using the countif() function in your spreadsheet (or a pivot table in Excel) to count the occurrences of each zip code.  If you then add the result as field associated with each row in your spreadsheet, you could use what we call "advanced grouping" based on the count field you've added to tell MapAList to determine what color pin to use for each quantity or quantity range.

Step by step instructions explaining advanced grouping can be found at: http://mapalist.blogspot.com/2008/12/advanced-grouping-to-show.html

Best of luck!

[Ian]

Hi Commish,

Thanks for the quick response.

So my spreadsheet already has the aggregate number of occurrences per zip code... something like this:

ZIP      Count
12345  8
12346  12
12347  26
12348  3
12349  75

Since I don't want 25 different pins, how do I set up a range (ie. "between")... so that pins below 25 would be red, between 25 and 100 would be orange, and above 100 would be green? Is this a function or formula I need to do in Google Spreadsheets?

Thanks again,

Ian

[The Map Commissioner]

Ian,

You use a function in your GSS, or you could simply use the advanced grouping functionality in MapAList to make it happen.  Check out that link to the tutorial around advanced grouping...it's pretty easy.

Best of luck!

[Ian]

Hi Commish,

I hope I 'm not beating a dead horse here, but I'm still having trouble creating a criteria for a "range" of values... the only operators are greater-than, less-than, etc... nothing called "between". So if I set a group for < 20 and give it a red pin, and another group for < 40 and make it orange, and another for < 60 and make it yellow, everything shows up as yellow. Here's a link to the map so you can see for yourself.

http://mapalist.com/Public/PublicMapViewerShell.aspx?mapid=70552

If there isn't a way to create a range within your website I can try figuring it out in Google Spreadsheets, but you indicated there was, so I thought I'd ask.

Thanks again for your help.

Ian

[The Map Commissioner]

My bad Ian, you're right.  

If you are looking to do true ranges you'll have to create a new column in your GSS and use a formula.  That formula should be setup to return a unique value or text string that you can then use that unique value to drive your pin color.

There's a good example of how to use nested IF statements at the very bottom of this page: http://techonthenet.com/excel/formulas/if_nested.php

I tested and confirmed that it works in Google Spreadsheets.

Again, sorry about that...

[Ian]

Hey Commish,

It worked! Check it out:

http://mapalist.com/Public/PublicMapViewerShell.aspx?mapid=71436

My only suggestion would be a way to go back and edit a map rather than having to recreate it every time you need to make a change... I'm sure you're already on it though.

Thanks for your help!

Ian

[The Map Commissioner]

Excellent Ian - great map!  Thanks for sharing with the forum.