Switched servers
Posted by Charlie
Earlier this week we redirected ammonite to point at the new server hosted at Data393. The new server is running the latest MapBuzz release which includes two major new features – discussions and editing.
The discussions feature lets users add their own comments to maps, communities and users. Discussions are threaded, which means that users can reply to other user’s comments. This functionality lets users share information about maps and will be a major part of creating user communities on mapBuzz.
The editing functionality permits users to add their own features to maps. This includes simple point features such as restaurants as well as more complex features such as trails (linear features) or parks (area features). Users can also edit existing features by moving them around or changing their shapes.
We've also started working on two additional new features – rankings and data uploading. Rankings let users assign one to five stars to a map. These rankings are then averaged to provide an indication of which maps the user community finds most interesting.
Data uploading lets users who own handheld global positioning systems (commonly known as GPS devices) to load their data to mapBuzz. For example, users can create maps of their recent vacations by uploading location data from a handheld GPS device. Users can then attach additional information to the map such as notes or pictures and then share the map with friends and family.
Finally, we spent some time improving existing functionality. For example, we expanded search functionality so that you can search for users via email addresses, which was a commonly requested feature.