The great thing about Firefox add-ons is there's always another one you've never heard of, like, for instance, Mini Map Sidebar (MMS), which is the best add-on we've seen for map geeks who crave a better way to use online mapping services.
Once installed, you can access Mini Map Sidebar with a toolbar button and have Google Maps and directions at the click of a button, without leaving the page you're on (MMS can also be accessed at View > Sidebar > Minimap or using CTRL + SHIFT + E). Mini Map Sidebar also supports Yahoo Maps and Windows Live Local, and can pull directions from Microsoft as well as Google and Yahoo.
Perhaps the handiest thing about Mini Map Sidebar is that you can drag-and-drop locations from a webpage and automatically pull up maps. Simply highlight an address on a webpage and drag the text over to MMS and you'll instantly get a map. Store a default home address and you can get directions with one click.
There's also an impressive amount of extra features lurking in MMS. You can search the map as you would on the main map page, as well as get the latitude/longitude of a location and even generate code to embed a map on your site or e-mail a link.
True power users will love the “geodiscovery” feature which, if a page has geo tags, will automatically pull up the location when you open MMS. The address is listed just below the map itself and clicking the link will pan to the discovered location. While not that many pages have geodata at this point, there's enough to make this handy — Flickr photos, for instance, often have geodata (see screen below).
MMS can also preview KML files before opening them in Google Earth and find places reviewed at Platial and Tagzania. Other nice searches include looking on Upcoming for nearby events, as well as Amazon for books about a location and Ebay for tickets and the like. The easiest way to access all these features is the right-click a location in the MMS list and chose the desired option.
Overall a wonderful little extension, especially for the map geeks, though even average users will enjoy the ability to see maps without leaving the page and quickly search for reviews and events. Mini Map Sidebar requires Firefox 1.5 or higher and even supports Firefox 3 Alpha.
[via Google Operating System]
An example of the drag-and-drop address features. The address doesn't need to be that precise either, in this case I just dragged over "Dubrovnik, Croatia."
Auto discovery via page tags. Flickr actually uses two different meta tags for geodata, and MMs recognizes both, which is why the address shows up twice.
See Also:
- Slim Firefox's Memory Use By Disabling Problematic Add-ons
- Add Some Hefty Crypto To Gmail with FireGPG
- Protect Your Privacy: Stop Cache Tracking In Firefox
- How To: Adding Subway Maps To Your IPhone
- Google Maps The Road Less Traveled
- Easily Add Google Maps To Your Site With New Embed Code
- Google Maps: Change Directions With New Drag-And-Drop Tools
