WME Toolbox: Mini-map
The mini-map provides a contextual view of the area surrounding an editor by placing the editor's WME position in a smaller rendering of the Waze LiveMap. Rather than present a static view of the user's position like most mini-maps in other software, however, the Toolbox mini-map is meant to be dynamic. As a consequence, editors have the ability to interact with the LiveMap to change positioning in WME and vice versa.
Click on the magnifying glass icon in the toolbar to enable or disable the mini-map. The icon will be green when the map is enabled and red when disabled.
Layout
The basic mini-map provides a blue circle centered on the editor's WME position and a red rectangle showing the WME viewing area.
Also, note the presence of the +/- zoom controls from the LiveMap. This allows a user to zoom out to establish a better overview or zoom in to provide a more detailed view of their position--without having to zoom in or out in WME itself.
Interaction
By enabling options in the Toolbox Config Panel, editors are able to extend the functionality to make the mini-map more interactive.
- The option to "re-center WME when panning mini-map" allows an editor to click and drag on the mini-map surface, and WME will re-center its position based on the mini-map's new position. This allows users to rapidly move around WME without having to search or use a permalink in WME. When used in conjunction with a zoom out, editors can easily get anywhere within a country or even the world by panning around on the mini-map--without the 2km zoom limitation in WME.
- The option to "re-center mini-map when panning WME" should be enabled to provide standard mini-map functionality. As a user pans around the map in WME, the mini-map will adjust its position to follow an editor's movement. Disabling this functionality temporarily by unchecking this option though allows a user to essentially "save" a position using the mini-map. This allows editors to move around freely in WME and then return to an initial position simply by clicking and dragging in the mini-map. When used with the re-center WME option, WME will return to that initial position.
All of the interactivity built into the Toolbox mini-map was intended to provide a more versatile experience for not only visually showing a user's position, but to help facilitate movement within WME. It provides more than the standard overview functionality that some users may be used to, so it may require some training and use of the different Config Panel options to see exactly how interactions work.