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• Krzysiek commented  ·  August 02, 2011 12:28  ·  Delete

  First of all thanks for the performance improvements when dragging/zooming. It's an awesome app and keep up the great great work!

  As for the UI it really needs rethinking in the spirit of metro guidelines. My humble suggestions (in line with those guidelines):
  - remove transparency in toolbar and topbar, it gives nothing and brings chaos. if you really really need it (don't think so) than use equal level for items (see zoom/toolbar/layers - all diferent)
  - don't show topbar if it's empty! Don't show status of GPS etc. as text. Use simple, clean and small icon
  - don't show tips all the time (or add option to turn them off) or at least let us hide them by tapping it. it'a a lot of text that spoils UI most of the time and gives nothing if you use this app daily
  - odd number - 1,3 or 5(as a last resort) buttons in the toolbar (e.g. don't show "clear map" when there's nothing to clear! and move it to (...)). Sadly not many apps follow this rule :(
  - "magic number" for margins (iirc 12px) of buttons (zoom btns are waaay to close to edge/toolbar)
  - create e.g. "Mode" menu in (...) and move there street/hybrid/.. as a opaque fullscreen list
  - create e.g. "Layers" menu in (...) and move transport and traffic there (see above). Those just block the view and I don't think anybody switches it so often that it needs to be on the main view
  - zoom buttons - do we really need them if there's pinch to zoom? At least add option to hide them.
  - photo button - huh, that's a tough one.. needs to be available but most of the time just blocks the view.. dunno, but on another note - the taken photo shouldn't contain UI elements (like tips), what's the use of that?
  - again, if you really need buttons at all - use equal margins (now there's a gap only between layers and photo - looks clumsy)
  - as a bonus - "About" screen - it's a typographic mess. Choose one or two font styles/sizes/weights and stick to them!

  Most of these are small but together they make for a lot more aesthetic design and razor sharp look.
  So to summarize - cleaner, simpler and "less that does more". New functionality is great but doesn't necessarily need to mean new button in the main view ;)

• Henry XU commented  ·  August 02, 2011 04:36  ·  Delete

  Yep Glad to hear from u group! I'd be honored to tell ya some of my opinions:)
  U guys did a very gud job in gMap, but if want to be better, the UI need tweak...

  First and always comes first. More fluent, make ui faster. Now the 1.1 version still sluggish, if compared with Bing Maps, and Bingle.

  Second as I said, make everything simple. This is also the Microsoft Notion upon WP7. If u read the guidelines of WP7, u would probably find standard buttons an control panel elements, if those r applied to the app, it will be much better to look and use.
  WP7 is not like android, which put everything is the list, we can do everything through list. No, that's not WP7, that's Symbian, that's Android. As a perfect WP7 app, we should know how to simplify the bottons and control panels. So in my opinion, u dont hav to put everything on the main window, hide some function into "..." keep the map clean, and only simply map.

  If u guys think u need more funtion control, y not provide more ui settings? Like "Hide zoom bottons" and "Hide public transit icon", Or "hide traffic botton hide snapshot icon" or sth like that... (U will c that from Bingle Maps)

  If u want, better comply with Windows Phone 7 charactristics, metro UI and one-color accent theme. Even including considering rename of the app and change a new icon with accent color 2d style.(Abt icon, if u need I could make one for u guys:))

  These r only my silly understanding of WP platfm, forgive me if any of my words offend u.

  Thanks again for making such a handy n powerful tool for us, at the moment we dont hav Official Google Maps. Regards.
  Love u guys XD

• AdminAlex Sorokoletov (Admin, gmaps) commented  ·  August 02, 2011 03:21  ·  Delete

  Could you maybe give us some guidelines on UI you'd like?