amCharts & amMap blog

We’re happy to announce that new version of amMap 2.5.2 was released. [Download]

Among numerous new country maps as well as other changes  there is a very cool new feature – timelines. Now you can show historic iterations of data on your maps as well. [Example]

Complete list of changes:

• FEATURE: hover_alpha attribute for <area> in data.
• FEATURE: setColor(oid, color) JavaScript function which sets color to an area with the given oid.
• FEATURE: added amtimeline.swf to the package which allows timeline- based data transitions. Refer to "examples/timeline" for further information.
• MAP UPDATE: world.swf now includes Kosovo. venezuela2.swf with more island details.
• NEW MAPS: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Ecuador, Finland, French Guiana, Guyana, Iceland, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Montenegro, Paraguay, Peru, Serbia (both with and without Kosovo), Slovenia, Suriname, Sweden, Uruguay
• BUG FIX: Labels sometime were wrapped after map redraw.
• BUG FIX: movies, embeded in text box contents are now properly stopped when tex tbox is closed.

We have included 22 additonal country maps in the latest release of amMap 2.5.2 [Download] bringing the total of bundled maps to 70.

Countries added:

• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Colombia
• Cyprus (with alternative version)
• Ecuador
• Finland
• French Guiana
• Guyana
• Iceland
• Kosovo
• Kyrgyzstan
• Moldova
• Montenegro
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Serbia (also with Kosovo)
• Slovenia
• Suriname
• Sweden
• Uruguay

We’re planning on adding even more regional maps in the upcoming months.

Maps of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Slovenia and Sweden were added to the amMap package.

Kosovo, a new country is now separated from Serbia in all maps of amMap. Although Kosovo doesn’t have ISO country code yet, but most likely it will be “KV”. So we used this code for the area instance name. To upgrade the map, you should simply overwrite your world.swf with a new one (by default it is in ammap/maps folder) and add this area to your data file:

<area title=”KOSOVO” mc_name=”KV”></area>

Included in the brand new amMap v 2.5.0 [Download] released earlier today we have included a bunch of new maps as well as updated some of the old. New maps added: (click on a name to view demo)

• Albania
• Andorra
• Bulgaria
• Estonia
• Greece
• Hungary
• India
• Ireland
• Japan
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Spain (mercator)
• Ukraine

We have just released amMap v 2.5.0 [Download]

New features added:

Now every custom movie (defined in <movies>) has an attribute that references to the main AmMap object. So the movies now have easier access tomap object’s public properties ant functions. I.e.:

_ammap.zoom_level
_ammap.setZoom()

Additional background settings and map overlay

<stretch>  [false] (true / false) should we stretch background over the whole width/heigh?

<overlay_file> [] (filename) swf or jpg file to use as an overlay for the map. This file must be located in path/ folder (set in html file)

<overlay_stretch> [false] (true / false) should we stretch overlay over the whole width/heigh?

Ability to reorder movies, lines and labels layers

A new <layers> setting in which you can set the order of appearance of movies, lines and labels layers. I.e.:

<layers>labels,movies,lines</layers>

In This case lines will be drawn on top, movies underneath it and labels at the bottom. Please note that objects with X/Y coordinates still be drawn over objects with long/lat coordinates due to the nature of internal object placement organization.

Ability to always show hand cursor

New setting <always_hand>. If set to true, mouse cursor will always be hand but only if drag_map=true.

Additional JavaScript function call: amRegisterClickAnywhere()

Works similarly to amRegisterClick, except it is called even when clicked
on a non-object (hence "anywhere") like background, disabled area, etc.

When clicked on background it returns "__background" for an oid.

Internal event broadcasting mechanism

Now main AmMap object acts as a brodcaster of events included movies’ objects can register as listeners to. I.e.:

__ammap.addListener(myObject);

Whenever some event occurs amMap will call corresponding method on myObject. Refer to online documentation for the complete list of events.

Developer mode shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts were added in developer mode to copy map info into clipboard:

Ctrl + 1 – Copy longitude and latitude
Ctrl + 2 – Copy stage x and y
Ctrl + 3 – Copy stage x% and y%
Ctrl + 4 – Copy zoom info

Additional embedded map marker/movie: rectangle_centered

amMap positions embeded marker "rectangle" according to upper left corder. If you would rather position according to the center of the rectangle use "rectangle_centered"

Bug fixes:

Setting <zoom_on_click> to true caused anomalies when switching to another map which has this setting disabled.

Now when text_box is set to show_on_hover=true and hide_on_roll_out=false text box will show X (close) button.

I am happy to announce you amMap v 2.4.0. It has a long list of features which makes amMap even better:

Zooming to latitude and longitude is now supported
Now it’s enough to set latitude, longitude and zoom level for the movie or area, and after user will click on this object, the map will zoom-in centering the given latitude and longitude. For example:

<movie file=”target” title=”Vienna” lat=”48.2″ long=”16.3″ zoom=”500%”></movie>

You can also add lat and long attributes to the areas. Note, if you set zoom_x and zoom_y attributes, the chart will use them instead of lat and long. Check World capitals example to see this in action.

Zooming to longitude and latitude with JavaScript
A new JavaScript function:

flashMovie.setZoomLongLat(zoom_level,longitude,latitude,instant);

Allows zooming to latitude and longitude with JavaScript.

New JavaScript functions

flashMovie.zoomIn();
flashMovie.zoomOut();

Will zoom-in or zoom-out the map. You can use these functions for fixing zooming-with-mouse-wheel problem, which appears when the wmode is set to “transparent” or “opaque”.

Default colors for the movies
New settings:

<movie>
  <color></color>
  <color_hover></color_hover>
  <color_selected></color_selected>
</movie>

Allows you to set general colors for the movies. Especially comfortable when a lot of the same movies are used, like in World capitals example.

Filling unlisted areas with some color
A new setting:

<area>
  <color_unlisted></color_unlisted>
</area>

allows setting the color of the areas which are in the map file, but not listed in the data file. If you don’t set any color here, the area will keep it’s original color. This allows keeping data file smaller.

Smoothing images
A new setting, <force_smoothing> was added. If you use bitmap images as your maps, then you can set this to “true” – the quality of the image will be better (might slow down the zooming).

Disabling JavaScript functions
A new setting, <js_enabled> was added. It allows disabling all javascript-html communication. Id you set this to false, then the map won’t listen and won’t call any JavaScript functions. This will also disable the security warning message when opening the chart map your hard drive or CD.

World map updated
Some minor islands were added to the World map

Interactive map of Belgium with borders of provinces was added to the amMap package.

Map of Canada added to the amMap package.