MapWith.Us is a social networking Web site that aims to build an online community based on creating, sharing, and discussing customized maps. You can design and publish your maps from the Web or add text and photos from your cell phone using our simple mobile application.

MapWith.Us allows you to locate any content, such as photos, videos, documents, Web links and custom routes. It enables you to create your own customized maps, save them to your personal profile, and share them with friends or the entire world.

For example, you can share pictures and video from a recent vacation, give directions to your house, plan a trip to Hawaii or refine details for an upcoming wedding reception. You can even password protect your maps so that only preferred visitors can view them.

The MapWith.Us Web site will work with any relatively new computer and browser. However, we do have some specific performance notes:

Web Browsers

MapWith.Us works best in Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. Older Web browsers such as Internet Explorer 6 and new but less popular browsers such as Opera 9 and Safari 3 also work well but you may experience a few hiccups or notice one or two irregularities.

Computer and Internet Connection

Our maps often feature hundreds of notes, photos, routes and videos, so using a very large map surface on some slower machines can result in less than ideal performance. To speed up maps and searches, you can shrink your browser window to decrease the size of the map surface, or limit the number of results or items on the map by changing the Show # items setting on the Creator Map or the Show # items setting on the Viewing Map.

You will find a Contact Us link at the bottom of most pages on the Web site. Just fill out the form on our contact page, submit it, and we'll reply to your message personally, typically within one business day.

To create an account, navigate to the website at http://mapwith.us. From there, you can click on the free registration link. In order to sign up for an account, you will need to supply a username, password, email address, and fill in a captcha field. Registration is quick, easy, and free! You can literally sign up for an account and be on your way in less than a minute. If you are just getting started, you might want to check out our videos section for tutorials that will help you get up and running in no time.

To make a map, you need to sign up for an account. Once you have an account, click on the Creator Tab and select the New Map link. You can use the tools provided to add content to your map. Specific information about the tools can be found on our Tools and Settings help page. The general idea is that you will add items to your map and each item can contain one or more components. A component can be text, an image, an RSS feed, an embedded web video, a zoom-to, or a web link. Once you have added content to your map, you will need to publish it before anyone will be able to view it. To publish, click on the Map Settings tab of the tool pane to the left of the map. For more details about publication, take a look at the documentation on Publication Settings or watch our video on basic map creation.

Searching for a particular map or a map meeting specific criteria is best done from the Maps Tab. For information on finding maps, read the documentation on the Maps Tab Landing Page.

There are several ways to share your maps. At the bottom of the Viewing Map is a link to Email this map to a friend. You could also use the Link to this map link to get a link to the map. Simply copy the supplied link and paste it into an email, a blog entry, your instant messaging client, or wherever else you would like.

Our Help section is laid out the same way that the website is. If you stumble across a question while using the site, look to determine which tab of the site you are on (there are five main tabs, the Home Tab, the My Page Tab, the Maps Tab, the Creator Tab, and the Profile Tab) and then take a look in that area of the Help section. Alternatively, you can use the search bar that appears in the upper left corner of the documentation site (http://docs.mapwith.us) to quickly locate occurrences of specific keywords in the help documentation. If you are just getting started or curious to see the site in action, take a look at our short and informative Video tutorials. If you still can't find the information you are looking for, feel free to Contact Us. We will do our best to get back to you within 24 hours.

All maps at MapWith.Us are automatically sized for the best fit in your browser window. If you find that the map appears either too large or too small, try adjusting the width and height of your browser window until you find a comfortable map size. Under most resolutions, we suggest maximizing your browser window to get the largest viewing space.

In order for your maps to be embedded, they must be set as embeddable in the settings for that map. To do this, open your map in the Creator tab, go to the map settings area on the left side of the map and click on the icon labelled 'No Embed' near the top of the pane. The label for the setting will change to 'Embed' and you will be on your way.

The Home Tab is the site's landing page. It purpose is to provide information about the site and the services offered and to serve as a gateway to the rest of the site. For more information about the Home Tab, check out our Home Tab help page.

In order for the Home Tab to display properly, your browser must have a Flash® plugin installed and enabled. If you don't have a Flash player installed, you won't be able to view the introduction or client showcase on the Home Tab, but the rest of the site should work fine for you.

The My Page Tab provides a snapshot of where the site's hot spots are. It consists of three moveable widgets that can be dragged around the page and repositioned using your mouse. Currently, the page is home to three widgets: Active Users, Featured Maps, and Updated Maps. For more information, read our documentation on the My Page Tab.

Yes! You can move widgets around between the three columns any way you would like. To relocate a widget, simply click on it with your mouse and drag it to where you would like it to be located.

Not at this time. In the future, we will provide a mechanism for customizing and creating widgets. Until then, we recommend using the existing widgets or use the Maps Tab to locate maps meeting certain criteria. For more information about locating maps on the Maps Tab, check out the help section on the Maps Tab Landing Page.

The Maps Tab is home to our streamlined interface for locating and viewing maps. Note that you will not be able to edit a map or attach overlays or content to it from the Maps Tab. If you wish to do such things, you need to head over to the Creator Tab.

For help finding maps, see the documentation on the Maps Tab Landing Page, the main place to go for locating maps on the site. If you are just browsing and not looking for anything in particular, the widgets on the My Page Tab provide listings of maps grouped by common criteria such as recently updated, featured maps. Additionally, the My Page Tab links to the profiles of active users where you will be able to browser through their public map listings.

From a map listing, simply click on the link to any map and you will be taken to that map's unique Web page. From there you can read a short description, browse the map, and leave comments for the owner and other users.

There are a few reasons why you may not find as many maps as you expect.

1. If you are searching by location, search results are limited to the area on the search map that you're currently looking at. Pan the search map to look for maps in a different location, or zoom out to search a larger area at once.
2. Try increasing the number of days shown option at the upper-left of the detailed results pane to find older search results.
3. Try entering additional keywords to describe what you're looking for.
4. Maps that are larger than the visible search area won't show up in the search, so be wary of zooming in too far.

For help finding maps, see Maps Tab #2: How do I find maps that interest me?.

Once you have located the listing for the map you wish to view, simply click on the link to any map and you will be taken to that map's unique Web page. From there you can read a short description, browse the map, and leave comments for the owner and other users.

Absolutely! Our flexible and robust commenting system allows you to leave comments on any published map or even on a specific item on the map or a specific point on the map. Scroll down below the map to find the Comments section. Read what comments other users have read, and add your own comments using the form at the bottom of the page. For more information about leaving comments, take a look at the help section on Comments for the Maps Tab. If you want to control how others can leave comments on your maps, read about the Comment Settings tool on the Creator Tab.

Many maps permit users other than the owner to add items. We call these community maps, and they work in many different ways.

Community maps may be restricted to registered users only, or they may allow "anonymous" additions. Some maps permit users to modify or delete existing items. The owner of the map may give users the ability to add overlays to the map (see Creator Tab #5: What are overlays?), which give users more control over their additions to the map.

For more information about community maps, read the help section on Community Settings.