PadMapper is back to its normal, ungimped form (keyword search is back, and I actually left subway on). Thanks very much to DailyCandy for sending its readers this way. Now that the server doesn’t need babysitting, I’ve got a host of things to work on, some of them a result of your feedback.
-The right handles of the range sliders are apparently very hard to use properly in IE7. A quick checkup in Windows confirmed this – they suck horribly in IE7. Sorry guys, I hope this hasn’t been like this for months. A quick fix is to use a better browser like Chrome, FF3, or Safari, but I realize not everyone has access to/wants to use one of these. The slider code is a bit fragile, so I might not get this fixed too soon, I’m probably going to have to play with alternatives. One way around its awkwardness is to click a bit more to the right than you would normally try to. Counterintuitive, I know.
-Better feedback on the current values of the sliders. I’m thinking of squeezing in some interactive readouts of the current values (read: text boxes that control the sliders and are controlled by them).
-Changing a marker’s color when you visit it. Perhaps a different color for favorited listings, and perhaps the ability to hide ones you’re not interested in. This one’s easy to do poorly (have all the markers snap back to being fresh-looking upon refresh), difficult to do really well (persistent history of what you’ve looked at, as well as the ability to hide markers and have new markers take their place), so it might be a while, or I might put out an interim solution that’s functional but not the cadillac of solutions.
-Better Craigslist post quality – get rid of the markers linking to deleted/flagged listings. Currently PadMapper depends on a short time limit (CL listings are only shown for 5 days), your flagging (clicking the “Something’s wrong with this one…” links), and a couple other more esoteric methods to help keep the number of dupes and deleted listings down. It clearly needs something more, though.
-Editing self-post listings – In the works, self-post is beta/unfinished.
-Listings hosted by PadMapper – also in the works. I’ve got some cool ideas for this.
There are some others, and a couple of bugs that needed fixing. Thanks guys for all your feedback, especially the ones that called out the bugs. Let me know if there’s anything else you spot or you wish there was some particular change. I likely won’t implement the exact features you propose, but it’ll help me decide what’s needed.
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