I’ve released this test version of the LifeMap for non-supporter accounts - Updates on January 22, 2022 (Release 480) so this thread is now geared towards supporters.
If you’re a supporter, I’d love your feedback on how this test version compares to your advanced LifeMap. This version downloads all the data first, and then displays your activities on the map. The current LifeMap loads data as it’s needed. I’d like to hear how you feel about the two different experiences, especially across multiple visits.
How to view the test LifeMap
Take your LifeMap URL and add _test at the end of it.
For example, my LifeMap URL is https://citystrides.com/users/1/map and if I add _test at the end of it, it becomes https://citystrides.com/users/1/map_test
(if you visit your LifeMap and then want to change the URL to the test version, you must remove the # and everything after it first - the end of the URL must bemap_test with nothing after it)
I like it. Instead of the bird’s nest jaggies, there was nothing (for a long while?) and then, pop! Perfect. When I reloaded, it was quicker (caching?)
If the “go to” animation went away… I would not be disappointed. It’s cool the first time, but, like, “I know where I live on the map, thank you."
One change I’m not thrilled with is that clicking Lifemap automatically reloads centered on your default city without panning to the default city from wherever your map was focused on the previous page, as it used to. I will surely be able to adapt to this but it’s annoying if you spend a significant amount of time somewhere other than your default city & don’t want to change your default city all the time.
The ‘zooming around’ never bothered me because it took a few seconds maximum, and I took advantage of it because if you pan during that it throws a brake on it and keeps you where the map was focused.
My situation is that I spend my work week in Lisbon, Portugal and my weekends in a more rural part of Portugal that is >100 mi away. Either one could be my default city but I’m not gonna change it back and forth twice a week. My shortcut to keep the Lifemap focused in the non-default city was to click an activity done in that area and then load the Lifemap and zoom scroll to interrupt the aforementioned ‘zooming around’. Now I have to manually go to my non-default second region every time I load my Lifemap.
I’m not able to see my LifeMap at the moment - the geojson polyline source is returning a 403 Access Denied. I’m thinking this is just an issue for non-supporters, since some maps seem to still work. This happens on LifeMap, individual cities, and map_test. It was working earlier today.
Also, it might be a good idea to send an error toast if this happens - I had to open up DevTools to see why it wasn’t loading.
Oh! Here’s a cool thing that’s probably not noticeable on a mobile device…
Whenever you zoom in/out or pan around the map, the URL is updated. So you can move your map to exactly the view you want to load every time & bookmark that page. Every time you open that link, it’ll load that exact view of your LifeMap.
I made it with the idea that people would want to share exact views of their LifeMap, but you can create two bookmarks - one focused over Lisbon and one over the rural area.
