Flex Maps and Classic tours

MapsAlive gives you two choices for creating interactive maps. Flex Maps are all about making the map itself as prominent as possible on any device. Classic tours combine interactive maps with traditional web page elements to let you create a simple website just using MapsAlive. Both ways let you have one or more maps inside what’s called a tour.


What is a tour?

A tour is a multi-page container for interactive maps and galleries. Every page in a Flex Map tour is an interactive map whereas a Classic tour can also contain gallery and data sheet pages as well as other traditional website elements like a banner and a footer. Both kinds of tours work great on desktop and mobile browsers.

Interactive floor plan

The second-level floorplan in the tour above was hand-drawn on an iPad Mini using Procreate.

Classic Tour

A Classic tour is like a website that contains interactive maps, galleries, and data sheets. Classic Tours are responsive but have a fixed layout and aspect ratio. The tour embedded in this web page above is an example of a Classic tour with multiple pages. Use the nav button in the center of the banner to select different pages in the tour: two maps, a gallery, and a data sheet. Resize your browser to see how the tour shrinks or grows to fit within the available space while maintaining the tour’s aspect ratio (the proportional relationship between its width and its height).

A Classic tour can use any of the features shown below.

  • Map
  • Gallery
  • Data Sheet
  • Navigation
  • Banner
  • Title Bar
  • Popup Layout
  • Tiled Layout
  • Footer

Flex Map tour

Flex Map tours are all about the interactive map. They take full advantage of responsive design and mobile devices by making the map as large as possible in every situation. Flex Map tours are flexible in that they automatically adapt to fill all the space that the browser or containing web page make available. The features it has in common with a Classic tour are shown below.

  • Map
  • Navigation
  • Popup Layout

A Flex Map tour embedded below uses uses the same floor plans as the Classic tour above. Zoom the interactive map all the way in and then choose a hotspot from the directory to see how the map auto-pans to bring that hotspot’s marker into view. Resize your browser to see how the map adapts to best fit the available space.

Interactive map of carriage road bridges in Acadia National Park