6/24/05: Now your course is drawn using lines instead of points! I think you'll find this makes the tool easier (and more fun) to use.
6/27/05:OK, I think I've cleared out the bug in the polyline drawing functionality. Thanks for the feedback, please keep it coming
6/29/05: Looks like Google released an upgrade that broke the app. I've uploaded a version that directly references the older version of their .js so we should be OK. Let me know if you still have problems.
6/29/05: Permalinks! This will allow you to save the your location, course, and distances as a URL and come back to them later. When you click the "Permalink" link, the URL in the location bar of your browser will be updated with parameters describing your position and current course. Then just bookmark the page! You can use this function to create a boomark to a map pre-zoomed to your town, save all your favorite runs as bookmarks, email a URL for a course to someone, or post a link to a course in a message board.
6/29/05: Clear Link. By popular demand, there is now a link that lets you clear whatever points you've recorded so far, and start over.
As always, let me know what you think and if you have problems with it.
6/30/05: Bugfix: You should now be able to zoom out much further than before without your route degrading into a line between the start and end.
7/5/05: We're official! The tool now uses the Google Maps API. There are a number of bugs and incompatabilities that will hopefully be cleared up by using the offical API.
7/5/05: And because it's always a drag to have a new software release with no new features, you can now choose your units. See the radio button under the distance buttons.
7/20/05: TinyURL! Long permalinks were causing problems for some users, and inconvenience for all. You can now use TinyURL to make the URLs more manageable.
7/20/05: Calorie Counter: Turn it on and enter your weight to see how many scoops of ice cream you're entitled to after your run. ;-)
7/20/05: Permalink improvements: Your permalinks will now remember whether you were on map or satellite, and whether you were using english or metric units. Calorie counter status and weight are rembered as well.
7/23/05: Hybrid Maps: Those sneaky monkeys at Google slipped in a new map type while I was napping! I had to make a small change so that permalinks would handle the new Hybrid map type. I love the hybrids. Every time I think it's perfect, Google goes and makes gmaps cooler.
7/23/05: Scale Bar: I added Google's new scale bar control as well.
7/27/05: Bugfix: Some Londoners were writing in with reports of an odd error -- turns out there was a bug that only manifested itself within .1 degree of the prime meridian. It should be fixed now.
7/28/05: Instructions: Small change so the instructions will now appear in a new window.
8/7/05 Mile (or KM) Markers! I've been dying to add this -- you will now get a marker drawn at each mile or kilometer on your course. You can turn them off too, something that should take care of the annoyance of being unable to place a point near where there is already an existing one. Note that mile markers only work up to zoomlevel 8. (If you were to draw a line across the Atlantic ocean, drawing a point at each mile would hose your browser in a hurry.)
8/8/05 Marker numbers! The mile/km markers I added yesterday now also contain a number.
8/12/05 There and back! There is now a link that will automatically complete a "there-and-back" route by reversing your route exactly the way you came.
8/25/05 Printing: Click the Print map link to temporarily reformat the screen to make it more suitable for printing.
8/23/05 Geocoding! Hands down, the #1 most-requested feature: Now you can enter your town (anywhere in the world, thanks to worldKit geocoder) and jump directly there.
10/6/05 gmap-pedometer.com! The site now has its own domain. You've already been redirected, but update your bookmarks. All your old links will continue to work.
10/6/05 Info popups We had a lot of text running down the left margin. I've moved it onto separate pages, see the links above.
10/16/05 Gmap Pedometer Mileposts! I've launched a message board for talking about the site, talking about running (or whatever your sport is), or just talking.
Export as GPX! Josh Larios has an extremely cool bookmarklet that lets you export Gmap routes to a GPX file, and he's written in support for gmap-pedometer.com. Thanks, Josh!
12/16/05 Elevation Graphs! You can now draw a graph that plots the elevation of each point against your distance. Elevation is provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, so unfortunately this is a U.S. only feature.
12/20/05 Location lookups were broken after a change on the site that provides our geocoding. Should be fixed now.
12/21/05 Some folks were reporting recentering issues. I've made a change that should address that.
12/23/05 Fixed another bug that was affecting location searches on city names with more than one word.
1/28/06 Serverside Permalinks! Your routes will now be saved in a serverside database. This should mean that all you folks who have superlong routes that were getting cut off by browser limitations on the length of the querystring should see your problems resolved. Note that all existing permalinks and tinyurls will still work. See the Usage Instructions for further details.
2/4/06 Bugfixes Released changes today and yesterday that correct some bugs connected with serverside permalinks and long routes. Thanks for the bug reports, folks.
4/12/06 Elevation graphs are down for new routes. I'm working on upgrading the site to a dedicated server, which will solve the problem - hopefully won't take more than a few days. Elevation graphs for routes you've created in the past should still be fine. Sorry for the inconvenience, everyone.
4/14/06 Elevation graphs are back! And now we're on our speedy new dedicated server, too!
4/18/06 Higher Resolution images I've switched to API version 2, so the satellite and hybrid images now go two levels closer!