Minimap
The Minimap sidebar is a Firefox extension based on my geoFlock version. Full details about this suite of maps and mapping tools for your browser over at http://minimap.spatialviews.com
Please use this page comments for bugs, discussion, trackbacks etc.
5. July 2007 at 07:13
Hi! An excellent extension, except for one thing: when trying the option ‘View Location in G Earth’ I got the message: ‘No results - empty KML file.’ I would be very grateful if you might give any advice with the problem. Thank you.
5. July 2007 at 07:25
Hi Kristain
The kml file is generated by google, and the extension does the following:
1) takes the google domain in your options, default is maps.google.com
2) then adds “/maps?addr=” after
3) then takes the address as it is apppears in the address list
4) finally appends “&output=kml” to the end
Maybe there is a problem with the address and thus google can’t generate the kml? To test this out open the google domain as set in your options and append the info from 2 and 3 above but not 4. Does this open in the google map or does it return an error?
tones
5. July 2007 at 21:28
Hmm, I have made a mistake in code
Should be q=, will update the extension so go to my site and download 0.1.2
6. July 2007 at 08:03
Thank you for your answer! Seems to work perfectly now.
8. July 2007 at 11:53
Hi again! There seems to be something odd still, sorry to say. I have changed the google maps option to maps.google.co.uk, but when I click on a UK street address on a webpage, I’m directed to a US address in the sidebar, however. Perhaps you might still be kind enough to advise me. Thank you.
8. July 2007 at 18:43
Do you have an example I can check out??
8. July 2007 at 20:40
Well, I tried to check out ‘Cannon Street’ on a webpage assuming I’ll get the location of the London street or perhaps a combination of similar streets on the British Isles; instead I was directed to New York. I readily admit that I was testing the extension and might well have made some mistake; thank you for help in advance.
9. July 2007 at 08:19
Hi Kristian
UK address support is very new in the Google geocoder and I am not sure google have ‘turned on’ conflict handling for UK addresses.
You also have to bare in mind that there are millions of addresses in the database, I have no control over which one google picks.
Have had a couple of similar requests for a sort of ‘default address’, one option could be if you set up a default location in the options (eg London), hold down ctrl when you drag and drop and this default London is appended to the address?
That leaves three drag and drop functions rather than the current two:
1) Normal DnD and it just fires off the selection and adds it to the addresslist
2) Shift DnD geocodes the selection and pans but it does not add to addresslist
add this 3rd
3) Ctrl DnD geocodes the selection and adds the default string (eg London) to the end.
tones
9. July 2007 at 14:29
Right, have made a few tweaks for version 0.1.3 which I will put online on my website tonight:
1) Added the ctrl DnD I talked about in previous comment above
2) Added address suggestions list. So for example, if you only search for ‘Cannon Street’ it will open up a list of items at the bottom of the sidebar of all addresses which contain ‘Cannon Street’ in googles database. Click on the one you meant and that is what is added and zoomed to.
Again this depends on the main maps.google.xxx domain, so set to maps.google.co.uk in the options and UK addresses will be returned, .com and US Cannon streets are returned etc.
12. July 2007 at 21:10
Hi, great extension as it adds a better way to handle geo data than the current operator stuff (adding userscripts and such..)
I do find the relocation while trying to zoom in with my mouse wheel a little annoying, but otherwise, very tidy.
Could you add another line to the known issues list?
I’m running with the NoScript.net javascript extension, and it blocked the sidebar pane from working until I added stcstm.org onto it’s whitelist.
Many thanks!
13. July 2007 at 09:49
Hi John
Thanks for the spot! Will add to known issues.
The wheel zoom is a little annoying I know. It is a built in google maps function that zooms in/out where ever your cursor happens to be. It would make far more sense if it just zoomed on the map center. I will see if I can hack an alternative.
Best wishes, Tony
12. August 2007 at 23:26
Hi! Sorry to say, but in the newest version 0.1.4.7 the setting of home coordinates and default address seem not to work in any way. I’ve used ‘Add Address/Location’ and ‘Add Center Lat/Lon’ (in decimal deg), but nothing happens.Perhaps you would be kind enough to give some kind of advice. Thanks.
13. August 2007 at 06:13
Please follow the instructions on the Help Page - you need to use ‘Set as Map Home’ and ‘Set as Default Address’.
13. August 2007 at 08:59
Many thanks for your answer. I seem to have been somewhat stupid, because I now found my home address on the map. However, the ‘Add Center Lat/Lon’ option doesn’t seem to work; if I type in the exact coordinates to the dialog window (in dec deg), nothing happens (no blue marker etc.). Perhaps you might still be able to give some advice. Thanks.
13. August 2007 at 09:23
Hi Kristian
The Add Centre Lat/Lng dialog is designed to use the coordinates of the red crosshair at the centre of the map. Move the map to where you want the blue marker to appear so that it is under the red crosshair.
To add a ‘wild card’ lat/lng, try using the add address/location dialog (hmm, confusing I know). Enter a comma seperated lat/lng pair and see if that works.
Please feel free to seek further clarification - might be best to pick this discussion up on a google group I have set up for the extension: http://groups.google.com/group/minimap-addon
Best wishes, Tones
13. August 2007 at 11:28
Thank you, Tones! I think I got it working, for now, at least. Next time in google group, then!
17. September 2007 at 18:32
I could not get this one going with UK data, i grabbed it via http://lifehacker.com then saw you were UK based so perhaps its just me…
19. September 2007 at 16:59
Minimap is a thing of beauty for those of us constantly looking to orient ourselves. Its magic for me is in the easy drop of x,y pairs that gets the map to my coordinates of interest.
Is there any possibility of extending its comprehension to include xy embedded strings from other sources? I enjoy using a double map interface, with minimap on the left pane and MS Live Search on the right. If I could drag a permalink from virtual earth right into minimap to synchronize views it would be extremely useful.
Thanks,
Richard
19. September 2007 at 17:27
Hi Richard
In theory this should be easy to add into the next version - you can do it for Google and Yahoo maps permalinks so just need to add a few extra lines for local.live.com permalinks.
Will get onto it when I get a chance.
Tones
25. September 2007 at 16:02
Hi Tones,
I love this extremely useful add-on, but I have 1 tiny gripe - it changes the colour of text highlighted in the browser’s location bar to blue. I don’t quite understand why it does this, but I have confirmed it by disabling the add-on to restore the text-highlighting to its usual gray colour. It makes the text a little bit hard to read.
Thanks,
Sam
25. September 2007 at 16:47
Hi Sam
Is there any chance of sending me a screenshot please.
mctones@gmail.com
Many thanks, T.
28. September 2007 at 18:41
now fixed in version 0.1.4.10
T.
30. December 2007 at 11:20
Any chance you get get this working for FF 3 beta 2?
Great addon by the way!
20. February 2008 at 14:45
Hi,
I recently installed this nice plugin.
However, the german translation is first not complete - I think you are aware of this and I don’t really mind but personally I don’t like mixing various languages and would prefer a complete English one as long as the translation is not complete.
Second the current german translation suffers from severe errors which really offend me - this is surely not your fault but in spite of knowing the responsible person I’ll tell it here
“standard” is the same word in GE, still ending with “d” instead of “t” - the latter version being still absolutely wrong although getting more and more common as ortographic education is getting worse 
The addon itself seems higly useful and I appreciate your work!
20. February 2008 at 21:50
Hi Gonzo
The extension is translated at babelzilla.org - perhaps you could swing by and help the de-DE translator out
Best wishes, T.
20. February 2008 at 22:22
Thx for the quick answer!
I left a comment for the german translator there…
cU
14. March 2008 at 15:03
Hi Tones,
Love the MiniMap extension. Superb! I use it for dragging the item location of eBay auction(s) I’m browsing.
Which lead me to thinking….
Would there be a way that MiniMap could somehow query eBay’s API (or something) extract the “item location” string of the current item being browsed and _automatically_ display the location on the MiniMap map? That would be uber-cool!
Thanks again - great job.
Steve
Cambridge, England.
14. March 2008 at 17:53
Hi Steve
I’ll add it to the list to look into further.
Tones
25. April 2008 at 15:26
Hi.
I LOVE this plugin. It provides me with a quick way to map a route of locations of available apartments in NYC very quickly. Just wondering if there is a way to print the map of multiple locations plotted directly from the sidebar. I thought it was there in an earlier version, but i can’t seem to find it now.
thanks
dustin
29. April 2008 at 04:56
This plug-in is almost perfect for me, but there is one feature that I would really like. There is no sense of scale, and when I look at a map of a place I’m unfamiliar with, I have no idea if the distance I’m looking at is 500 meters or 50km. It would be nice to at least have the option of displaying a legend showing the relation between map distances and real life distances.
When using the Google Maps website, this feature appears on their maps in the lower-left, and I miss having this feature in this add-on. Since this add-on obviously uses Google Maps, I’m hoping this would be an easy feature to implement.
29. April 2008 at 16:54
Hi Kevin
With space in the sidebar cramped as it is, I simply do not think I can squeeze anyore in such as a scalebar.
Thank you for the feedback though. Tones
25. June 2008 at 11:21
Hey,
very nice application you have created;)
everything is perfect for my personal use in firefox 3.
i choose the link and it will be shown on this map, but what i have to do when i will use this link/url as itself? i have deactivated javascript in firefox 3 and it works.. i have deactivated your plugin and shourly it works too.. but where is my mistake, how can i use this javascript links as themselfs and your plugin?