Map Maker Update - October 16, 2012
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Sneha
Oct 16, 2012, 1:39:54 PM10/16/12
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Hi Mappers,
Last December, we introduced a new look to Google Map Maker, aiming to make it friendlier, more satisfying and easier for you, our mappers. Since that time, your valued feedback has allowed us to continue to strive toward further improving Google Map Maker for all our users.
You can post your thoughts and suggestions on this update here.
We are thrilled once more to launch further enhancements to Google Map Maker. This time we will be changing the interface in phases throughout the month of October and November. Below, we’ve outlined some of the major changes with this release:
Places Overhaul
Map Maker has now separated the buildings from the businesses within them, and will no longer allow business listings to be converted to a building shape or vice-versa. This approach will let Map Maker separate out abstract entities, such as business listings, from physical entities, like buildings, and allows us to combine Map Maker data more correctly with data from Google Places, such as reviews, photos, etc.
As part of this unified design, we’ve now classified Places as one of the following:
With this change you can now associate multiple establishments to the same building. For example businesses inside a mall, different companies in an office complex / building and so on.
Revised Toolbar
You can now add Building Outlines, Natural features and political boundaries directly from the Add New toolbar.
Changes to Add a Place
Earlier, establishments could be marked either as points, buildings or boundaries.
With this release, these can be marked only as points or boundaries, but not buildings.
We have revamped the Building / Boundary attribute to allow you to either convert an establishment to a boundary or associate with an existing building. Learn more about Place associations and boundaries.
While we’ve made a concerted effort to continue to ring in the new, we’re also aiming to fine-tune many of our existing functionalities.
Here are the changes in detail:
Changes related to Categories
We have some important updates on the topic of Categories. We are acutely aware of the issues that all of us face in this area.
In this release, we've made some changes to address these problems. The annoying situation with categories going missing and sometimes re-appearing and at other times with different names should now be fixed. We have made significant changes to our back end to synchronize the categories we expose with the list that is supported across all other products in Google Maps. This creates the foundation for us to more reliably add and remove categories, which is the situation we need to be in. With this synchronization, we get a list of new categories, but also lose a few. The benefit of this change is less about the new categories that have been added, and more about the stability it brings to the categories pipeline and the foundation it provides us to modify it in the future. In the spirit of sharing all changes with you, here are the specific categories that have been added and removed as a side-effect of this change:
We've also added additional restaurant categories such as Afghani Restaurant, Crab House, Egyptian Restaurant and more.
Note: The categories listed above are for English (US). The names might vary for different language settings.
Removed the Photo URL field from Map Maker
We’ve currently removed the Photo URL field from the Map Maker interface since this attribute is not being utilized in Google Maps and other Google products.
We request you to continue contributing photos using Google Places.
Introducing Zip code suffixes to Map Maker USA
The United States uses an expanded ZIP code system that is called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes or simply add-ons.
With this new extension, you will now have the option to add the zip codes in Zip+4 format. We will work on adding this support to other countries.
Prompt for setting nickname/photo
You will now get a prompt to add your nickname / photo to Map Maker. We encourage everyone to make a profile for themselves for better visibility of your contributions to Map Maker.
Number of nodes to add a polygon moved up to 2000
As a long standing request, we’re excited to announce that you can now add much larger polygons on Map Maker. The number of nodes to draw a polygon has increased to 2000.
Added “website” field to all the categories except Lines
You’ll now see website field in the Left Panel for all the categories of establishments, buildings, natural and political features.
All “Business hours” from History and review panel changed to “Working hours”
It was noted on issue tracker and forum that the history and the Review panel shows Business hours field name whereas the Edit column of Map Maker uses Working hours.
To keep the Map Maker interface consistent, we've changed the term Business hours to Working hours throughout.
Fixed few existing functionality
As mentioned earlier, this is only the first phase of many exciting improvements we will be introducing to Google Map Maker. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and happy mapping!
Thanks,
Sneha ( On behalf of the entire Map Maker family, Google)
See also: Map Maker help
Last December, we introduced a new look to Google Map Maker, aiming to make it friendlier, more satisfying and easier for you, our mappers. Since that time, your valued feedback has allowed us to continue to strive toward further improving Google Map Maker for all our users.
You can post your thoughts and suggestions on this update here.
We are thrilled once more to launch further enhancements to Google Map Maker. This time we will be changing the interface in phases throughout the month of October and November. Below, we’ve outlined some of the major changes with this release:
Places Overhaul
Map Maker has now separated the buildings from the businesses within them, and will no longer allow business listings to be converted to a building shape or vice-versa. This approach will let Map Maker separate out abstract entities, such as business listings, from physical entities, like buildings, and allows us to combine Map Maker data more correctly with data from Google Places, such as reviews, photos, etc.
As part of this unified design, we’ve now classified Places as one of the following:
- Establishments such as restaurants, universities, hospitals, stores and more
- Buildings such as apartment buildings, towers, lighthouses and more
- Natural features such as lakes, rivers, vegetation, dams, tarmacs and more
- Political features such as cities, localities and other administrative divisions and more
With this change you can now associate multiple establishments to the same building. For example businesses inside a mall, different companies in an office complex / building and so on.
Revised Toolbar
You can now add Building Outlines, Natural features and political boundaries directly from the Add New toolbar.
Changes to Add a Place
Earlier, establishments could be marked either as points, buildings or boundaries.
With this release, these can be marked only as points or boundaries, but not buildings.
We have revamped the Building / Boundary attribute to allow you to either convert an establishment to a boundary or associate with an existing building. Learn more about Place associations and boundaries.
While we’ve made a concerted effort to continue to ring in the new, we’re also aiming to fine-tune many of our existing functionalities.
Summary | Forum Link | Issue Tracker ID |
| Error message: Bad data (Road Section Inconsistent) fixed | https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mapmaker-rtm/0K0sYEGj0Ow | http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=624 |
| Size of the largest editable polygon | NA | http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=2475 http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=217 |
| Error message: Please correct field “Business hours “ | https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-mapmaker/MAyyQ4BDlkU/OxVGPmsAh30J | http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=3023 |
Here are the changes in detail:
Changes related to Categories
We have some important updates on the topic of Categories. We are acutely aware of the issues that all of us face in this area.
In this release, we've made some changes to address these problems. The annoying situation with categories going missing and sometimes re-appearing and at other times with different names should now be fixed. We have made significant changes to our back end to synchronize the categories we expose with the list that is supported across all other products in Google Maps. This creates the foundation for us to more reliably add and remove categories, which is the situation we need to be in. With this synchronization, we get a list of new categories, but also lose a few. The benefit of this change is less about the new categories that have been added, and more about the stability it brings to the categories pipeline and the foundation it provides us to modify it in the future. In the spirit of sharing all changes with you, here are the specific categories that have been added and removed as a side-effect of this change:
Added | Removed |
| Bicycle Shop Car Rental Agency Convention Center Criminal Justice Attorney Physician Dog Care Eye Care Food Court Food Delivery Food Store Inclined Railway Station Indoor Lodging Jewelry Store Attorney Light Rail Station Mine Mountain Cabin Movie Rental Observation Deck Women's Health Clinic Personal Injury Attorney Pet Care Recycling Container Location Pyramid Soba Noodle Shop Soup Shop Subway Station Entrance Taxicab Stand Telecommunications Equipment Supplier Truck Dealer | Fishing Lake Coalfield Oilfield |
We've also added additional restaurant categories such as Afghani Restaurant, Crab House, Egyptian Restaurant and more.
Note: The categories listed above are for English (US). The names might vary for different language settings.
Removed the Photo URL field from Map Maker
We’ve currently removed the Photo URL field from the Map Maker interface since this attribute is not being utilized in Google Maps and other Google products.
We request you to continue contributing photos using Google Places.
Introducing Zip code suffixes to Map Maker USA
The United States uses an expanded ZIP code system that is called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes or simply add-ons.
With this new extension, you will now have the option to add the zip codes in Zip+4 format. We will work on adding this support to other countries.
Prompt for setting nickname/photo
You will now get a prompt to add your nickname / photo to Map Maker. We encourage everyone to make a profile for themselves for better visibility of your contributions to Map Maker.
Number of nodes to add a polygon moved up to 2000
As a long standing request, we’re excited to announce that you can now add much larger polygons on Map Maker. The number of nodes to draw a polygon has increased to 2000.
Added “website” field to all the categories except Lines
You’ll now see website field in the Left Panel for all the categories of establishments, buildings, natural and political features.
All “Business hours” from History and review panel changed to “Working hours”
It was noted on issue tracker and forum that the history and the Review panel shows Business hours field name whereas the Edit column of Map Maker uses Working hours.
To keep the Map Maker interface consistent, we've changed the term Business hours to Working hours throughout.
Fixed few existing functionality
- It was noted that some of our mappers were not able to add multiple names and multiple phone numbers on the left hand panel. This is now fixed!
- Changing of the Phone number and Working hour format will no more give any error message.
- The Error message: Bad data (Road Section Inconsistent) is also now fixed.
As mentioned earlier, this is only the first phase of many exciting improvements we will be introducing to Google Map Maker. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and happy mapping!
Thanks,
Sneha ( On behalf of the entire Map Maker family, Google)
See also: Map Maker help
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