For probably about six years now, I've been shielding my eyes and sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA every time I looked at my
poor excuse for a development map. It so desperately needed a makeover, but I never had the time, creative spark, or technological chops to turn it into anything like what I would want it to be, so I just left it alone, even during the big JDLand redesign a few months back. The map's information was accurate, at least!
But a few weeks ago I
saw a blurb about Google's My Maps upgrade, now called Maps Engine Lite. You can draw lines and shapes! You can have layers (well, a few of them)! You can have Google as your maps base!
So I went off to play with it, and quickly decided that it could make a likeable enough successor to my original Web 0.1 map.
You can also always get to it by clicking on "
View Full Map" on the mini-map at the top right of most JDLand pages, or the "
Project Directory" link in the black menu bar.
It still isn't quite everything I dreamed of, but at least now you can zoom in, pan around, and filter the display by layers--if you only want to look at completed residential projects, or projects under construction, or projects not yet begun, or some combination thereof, click the little menu icon at top left and make your choices.
It may not be optimal for phones, and so I have to think about that for a while, but the big static list of projects is still available beneath the map if you are a words-and-not-pictures type of information ingestor.
I'll wager that my
Parking Lots map will get migrated as well before Opening Day 2015.
And if you have any complaints with how it functions, feel free to let Google know!