We’re glad to be able to announce a new feature on the site (yes, the first real new feature in a while!) – Sharing Codes.
The idea behind sharing codes is that a lot of people will want to share their location with friends and relatives who may not want to sign up to mapme.at, we recognise that and wanted to give you a way to share your location with some people while keeping your default public settings to something more restricted.
To get started log into mapme.at and click on the new “Sharing” tab at the top. You’ll be taken to a page that should look familiar, it shows you your current group accuracy settings but below you’ll also see the new “Sharing Codes” section:
It’s quite a big form but don’t worry, it’s quite simple really! The only thing you absolutely must enter is a description; this gives you a way of tracking what sharing codes you’ve created, whether it’s one for your parents, friends or perhaps even an employer, simply enter a description and save and you’ll get a new sharing code. We recommend that you create a new code for each person or purpose, that way if someone finds out one of your codes you can easily delete it and create a new one. The other fields let you specify how long the code is active for and the accuracy and amount of history to show, here’s a full breakdown off the sharing codes:
- Sharing Code
- This is the actual sharing code you’ll be giving out. Most people will simply want a link to the history page so that’s the link we give you, the sharing code can also be used with the API, more about that later.
- Description
- A short description so that you remember who you gave the code to.
- Accuracy
- The level of accuracy you want to show for this code. Standard options from “Country” to “Full Accuracy”, you can also set “No access” if you want to disable a code for a time.
- History to show
- Perhaps you’re happy for someone to see your current location but you don’t want them to be able to see everywhere you’ve ever been. This setting allows you to restrict how much of your history they can see.
- Expires
- If you want the sharing code to expire after a while enter a date and time in this setting. Various plain text times are accepted, once the code has been saved we’ll show you the accurate time we’ve determined. We won’t recalculate this until you edit the text. If you don’t enter anything for this then the sharing code will be active indefinitely.
- Delete?
- Want to delete a sharing code? Check this box and click “Save” below.
Remember that you must only share these codes with people you really want to see your location. If anyone else finds out a sharing code they will be able to see your location.
As mentioned above the sharing codes can be used with the API, simply pass sharing_code=[SHARINGCODE] and the API will your return your history to the level of accuracy you have specified. This is great for simpler applications where full OAuth access would be overkill. You can also use the sharing code with the export API but remember that if you put a sharing code on a webpage, even in the HTML, others will be able to read it and read your history, perhaps to a greater level of detail than you intended.
So play with the codes and let your family and friends find out where you are! As this is pretty fresh code there may be bugs so if you spot anything, let us know!
