We’ve been busy tweaking and working on new features for you again. Here are the details of what’s new as of today.
Closest 5
This new functionality adds two new features to the map to help you find and navigate to the nearest disabled / handicap parking spaces to your current location.
The first thing to notice is that the markers identifying the five closest locations to you appear slightly different to all of the other location markers on the map. The closest five location markers have a green wheelchair logo (as opposed to white) and are slightly darker in colour.
The second thing to notice is that when you click on the ‘You are here’ marker you now have the option to show the five closest locations. Clicking this button will pop up a list of the nearest locations with buttons to quickly show the route and driving directions to these locations. If you’re on a smart phone or tablet you’re given the option to open your SatNav app to navigate there as well.
What’s more, if you are using the improved ‘Follow Me’ function, detailed below, your nearest five locations will update on the map automatically as you go so you can always see at a glance which are the five closest!
These options are obviously only available if BlueBadgeParking.com knows what your current location is (i.e. when you allow the website to use your current location) and the closest locations are calculated in a straight line rather than by driving distance. (When you view a route or directions the actual driving distance and estimated time is calculated.)
Closest Five functionality was added as a result of user feedback… Let us know what else you think would improve BlueBadgeParking.com for you.
Traffic
You can now display the latest available traffic information directly on the map just by clicking a button!
Under the map type selection buttons (at the top of the left side sliding menu) you now have a new button which will overlay colour coded traffic information directly on the map.
If it’s green, the road is clear. If it’s red, there is heavy traffic (see screenshot below).
Massively improved ‘Follow Me’ function
While BlueBadgeParking.com is not intended to be a replacement for a true SatNav device (this is why we allow you to download our database into your real SatNav!), we do recognise that some SatNav-like functions are useful.
For this reason we have made some big changes to the way the ‘Follow Me’ function works.
Follow Me is activated by clicking the ‘two footprints’ button on the right of the map.
When activated, the map will follow you – hence the name – and shows your location in the center of the map.
Previously your location would update every five seconds and BlueBadgeParking.com would make do with whatever location accuracy your device chose to give… not any more.
With this latest release the site specifically asks your device to provide a high accuracy location (if available) and updates your location on the map whenever you move.
This means that the Follow Me function is now far more accurate, much more responsive and far smoother.
But that’s not all – The marker that indicates your position now also shows your heading, so you can see at a glance what direction you are heading in on the map, helping enormously with orientation!
All in all, this brings some essential SatNav-like functions to BlueBadgeParking.com that are especially useful when following a displayed route to a disabled parking location (if the blue arrow is following the blue line, you’re heading in the right direction).
New Google widget set
Google has updated the controls for map applications and we have adopted these new controls as of this update.
The new controls free up even more of the map for viewing, but they do remove the pan control meaning you will need to use cursor keys or drag the map to move around.
Street View Enhancements – including Full Screen
The updated map controls also extend to Street View where not only has the colour of the controls changed, but you now get the option of a full screen view – the button is in the top right, next to the Exit Street View button.
Full screen StreetView works particularly well on large screen devices, such as laptops, and gives you a great over-view of the area in which a parking space is located allowing you to assess whether or not there might be other obstacles you need to consider before heading off to park there.
Some of the other info is now displayed slightly differently in Street View as well making for a cleaner overall look.
As well as the above we’ve also crushed a couple of bugs and made some progress towards our next feature additions by adding some of the background stuff. Watch this space for more news about upcoming features…
And if you have any ideas about what else we could add that would be useful, let us know below or via social media.
If the location you want to share is not searchable and not tied to a particular Blue Badge / disabled / handicap parking location you can use the right-click menu to drop a ‘Sharing Marker’ anywhere on the map.
BlueBadgeParking.com 