Enhancing Sylectus with Microsoft Bing Maps
In order to serve you better, we have made some enhancements to our unit searching capabilities by moving from Google Maps to Microsoft Bing Maps. These changes will not affect the present Position History links to Google Maps website.
Where will You See These Changes?
This enhancement was applied to specific screens which allow unit searching, with the option of displaying their locations on an embedded map.
The following screens have been improved in this manner:
- Vehicle Address Book
- *Trailer Address Book
- Fleeting Maps
- Closet Ground Units
*The Trailer Address Book has been further enhanced to include option of displaying a map with unit locations, after a unit search.
Change Details
Premise
This section will discuss the upgrade for the Fleet Mapping page, the Closest Ground Units page, and the map available from the search results from the Fleet Vehicle page. These pages were upgraded to use the Bing Maps AJAX control rather than the Google Maps control. There are really only a few differences between the two, other than subtle differences in the look.
Primary Differences
Information boxes (bubbles): you’ll notice with Bing Maps, they have square corners instead of rounded ones.
Colours: there are a few colour differences, such as with the information box titles, and More Info links. Also, the colours of features on the maps are different as well. Google tends to use an orange colour scheme, while Bing uses more blues.
Pushpins: the pushpins should also look familiar with the new Bing Maps control, except that the trucks are larger, and the trailers have their IDs floating on top of them, for easy recognition.
Map Styles: Map Styles: Bing Maps offers two map types.
- Auto: which will typically default to ‘road’. This will give you the look of the Bing Maps example below.
- Birdseye: this is very similar to Google Maps hybrid view, though with darker hues.
Oddly enough, we are unable to specify a road map style directly, so it is fortunate that auto chooses the road view for most maps.
See the images below to compare the look of Google Maps and Bing Maps, on the surface.
Google Maps Example
Fig. 1-A, Google Maps example
Bing Maps AJAX Control Example
Fig. 1-B, Bing Maps example
Similarities
General Navigation with Mouse: moving the map around by dragging your map, or panning, is a standard feature for both Google Maps and Bing Maps. This has not been lost. Also, the ability to zoom in and out of the map with your mouse wheel is still available.
Scope of Available Features: both Google Maps and Bing Maps insets of this nature offer limited functionality. In order to have full access to Bing Maps features, click the title link within the information box (e.g. Sylect200 in the examples below) and you’ll be transported to that location in the actual Bing Maps website.
Status Colours: the status colours used for In Service, Out Of Service, etc, have been carried over to this control. The highlighting in the information boxes and icon colours will be very familiar.
Navigation Bars: this is both a similarity and a difference. It’s similar in the fact that it still exists with similar functionality, but different because it sports a changed look from what the user may be used to. These navigation bars are the floating controls over the map frame. With Google Maps, you have the circle with the arrows, allowing you to pan the map in different directions. With Bing Maps, they have a similar control. Also, with Google Maps, they had a vertical slider which allowed you to zoom in and out with ease. With Bing Maps, they use zoom in and zoom out buttons. Either way, panning is still able to be done by dragging the map around with your mouse, and zooming is still done with your mouse wheel. Another navigation bar feature is the ability to choose map type. For Google, you could choose Map, Satellite, or Hybrid. For Bing Maps, you have a drop down selection box allowing you to choose Road or Birdseye. Road, again, looks like the Bing Maps example above. Birdseye is essentially the same as Google Maps’s hybrid view, and you have the option to switch off labels, so it looks like Google Maps satellite view.
More Info: the more info box has not changed at all. Click on the More Info link within the information box (where available) and you’ll see the same screen that you’ve seen with Google Maps.
Known Issues
There is a known issue with Bing Maps for Internet Explorer browser versions before version 9. If the user zooms into the map and opens an information box, everything appears fine. However, if the user than pans the map (without zooming again), and clicks to open another information box, it will appear in the incorrect location, however, the data displayed will be accurate. This is an issue with the latest Bing Maps AJAX control update which Microsoft knows about. This does not seem to be a problem in Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.