As you may or may not have seen yet, Social Map has changed for the better. While change is hard and can be difficult to adjust to, we think you’ll like this change. In this blog I’ll cover the changes to the Social Map and how to effectively use it to help in your boating/fishing experience. We didn’t change any private trips you may have.
Why the change to the Social Map?
We are looking to catch up with the Internet of Things (IoT). If you are not familiar with the term of Internet of Things. It means that at some point, almost every appliance, device, car, and boat, is or well be connected to the internet and a phone app. This gives you and the manufacture updates on the status of your devices.
The IoT change is out from Simrad with the introduction of the Simrad NSX plotter and Lowrance will soon be following suit. The NSX unit is built with a common programming code base. The code base gives Navico the ability to create apps faster and make changes easier. Including the possibility of accessing Social Map from the plotter, faster and easier. Don’t worry, we didn’t leave the current plotters out of our development. You can still download your favorite waterbodies in the AT5 format on to your current plotters. See below for more information on the changes to the AT5s.
The best part of this change is that your trips may be added to the waterbody/section on Social Map in a day or two. This depends on the number of trips in the processing queue. Please keep in mind that when adding a trip to a waterbody that already has data in the area or tile of your trip or there was an error with your trip, it may not show up on Social Map. For best results follow the guide in this blog post, https://insightgenesis.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/how-to-record-c-map-genesis-sonar-logs-with-a-sonargps-unit/.
What is with the change of color for depth?
We did change the colors used for depth. We also changed how the colors are applied. In the previous version the colors were based on each waterbody. If a waterbody’s deepest point was 4 feet (1.22 Meters) that would be the darkest blue. That is no longer the case. Each depth has its own color now. Now 4 feet (1.22 Meters) uses the same color on every waterbody. This helps give you a better perspective of depth.
I can still see my favorite waterbodies but how do I favorite a waterbody?
As you may have noticed there is no longer a star to click on a waterbody from the Social Map. That star has been moved to the waterbody search page. To find the waterbody you want to favorite, mouse over the down carrot under Social Map on the heading. Click on “Social Map List” and you’ll see the list of your favorite waterbodies, if you have any. Under the list of Favorite Waterbodies, you’ll see a text box to enter the name of the waterbody you want to search for. Just enter the name and click Search. The search results will appear in the section below. To favorite a waterbody just click on the star. The star will change from an outline star to a solid blue star.
If you want to burn some time you can manually search through the entire list of waterbodies. The list is broken down in alphabetical order by country, then by state or province and waterbody name. When you mouse over the waterbody name and click on it, the Social Map page will open. The waterbody you clicked on will be in the center of your screen.
Clicking on the name to see on the Social Map page also applies for the list of Favorite Waterbodies at the top of the page. You can unfavorite a waterbody just by clicking on the star, in the list of Favorite Waterbodies. The star will change from a solid blue star to an outline star. You can still unfavorite a waterbody on the Favorites Waterbody list found on the drop down on the Social Map page.
Downloading AT5 files for your Plotter.
For the most part, the Social Map AT5 download process has stayed the same. You still need to add the plotter you are using on the Plotters page. Once you have that done, go to the Social Map. Find the waterbody you are looking for and click on the waterdrop that is the closest to that waterbody. When you click on the waterdrop a yellow outlined box should appear. The waterbody should appear within that box to download the AT5 file for it.
When you click on the waterdrop you’ll see the Send Feedback (this will be covered next) and Download Map options. Click on Download Maps and then the AT5 Map Generation modal will open. For your information the process to download and use an AT5 file is displayed. The best part is you can download and display more than one tile at a time on your plotter.
Send Feedback!
As you may have seen from a previous screen shot you have the option to send feedback. When you click on the Send Feedback option a new modal will open. It’ll contain your account name, email, and phone number (if you added it), the option to add an attachment (i.e., a screenshot), and place to enter comments. Once you have completed filling in the information click on “Send Request”. When the request is sent, the notification we get will contain information about the tile you are commenting about. From there, one of our QA GIS support team members will look at your feedback and take the appropriate action.
So why send us feedback? We did our best to keep errors out but when you are dealing with over 14k tiles in the world, errors are going to come up. We did try to address as many as possible during testing, but some are going to fall through the cracks. You as the Social Map user are going to know your favorite waterbodies better than we do. Thus, the term Social in front of Map.
Hopefully this will blog gave you good idea of why we made the change and how you can use it effectively. Watch for more changes from us in the next few months. We think you’ll really like them.
C-MAP Fishing 