Sharing now in Tech Comm on a Map on Android
I’ve released an update to the Tech Comm on a Map app on Android. You can now share a link to the location of an event via email, chat, Twitter, Slack, and so on – any app on your Android device that shows up in the standard app chooser. The people you’ve shared the link with can use it to open the Tech Comm on a Map website directly at that location. Handy for sharing event information!
Tech Comm on a Map puts technical communication titbits onto an interactive map, together with the data and functionality provided by Google Maps. You can use it on the website and get the Android app.
New: link sharing
Let’s say you’re looking at the tech comm events in your city, or in a part of the world you’re planning to visit. You want to let a friend or colleague know what’s happening in the tech comm world. Now you can share a link to a specific location on the Tech Comm map.
In the Android app, view an event:
Pull up the event panel from the bottom of the screen, to see the event details. Notice the new Share button:
Click the Share button. Android pops up a standard app chooser, showing you all the apps on your device that can handle the share request. It looks something like this, but you’ll see a different selection of apps:
Choose an app. Tech Comm on a Map sends your chosen app a bit of text and a shortened URL. This screenshot shows Twitter as the chosen app:
Your friends can copy the link and paste it into a web browser, to open Tech Comm on a Map at the location you’ve shared. (In this case, the shared link is https://goo.gl/SjBvRc.)
What’s next for Tech Comm on a Map?
Currently, the shared link opens the Tech Comm on a Map webapp. It’d be great to offer a link that opens the Android app directly at the given location.
The way to do it is via Android intents. I got part of the way to achieving this in the current release. If you click a link of a specific format, the Tech Comm on a Map Android app opens, but it doesn’t open at the given location. So far, I can’t get the location parameters to go all the way through to the app.
There are some other nice tweaks I could add to the app. I’m keeping track of feature requests and bug reports on the GitHub issue tracker. See the issues for the web app and for the Android app. They’re both open source, and you’re welcome to get involved.
