Many of you are aware of the
Precisely Ideas site where you can share your ideas for improving our product offerings. You can also find existing ideas and vote on or add comments to these to help steer us in the right direction with new features and functions.
We finally got around to looking through the ideas in order to mark the requests that have been addressed in the last couple of versions. That ended up with a quite long list of ideas that we have implemented through the last five versions of MapInfo Pro. More than 60 ideas have been marked with Now Available and some of these ideas list multiple features.
Below you can find a list of the suggestions that we have addressed.
Ideas/requests addressed in MapInfo Pro v2021
Date Formats - Table Structure
Open non-spatial GeoPackage labels without a map
Embed thematic legend
Fix KMZ import so that it brings in the attribute information
Keep map projection when using Bing
Expand StringToDate function
Filter map table in the layer control
Support Ordnance Survey WFS API for base mapping
Time Series
Support for GeoJSON data format.
Add similar functions to Vbscript's DateAdd and DateDiff
BING- forces its own (useless) grid
'Off' option for WMS layers in map view
Editions in Mapinfo Pro 11.5.1
Refresh/re-run a query
- https://ideas.precisely.com/ideas/MIPRO-I-554
- You can refresh a query through the context menu of the Table List without removing these from windows.
- MapInfo Pro v2021.1 allows you to refresh a query through the SQL Window and dialogs
MapInfo pro - rearranging order of items within tables
Universal Translator geoJSON & KML
True time series graph in map window - merge time and geography
Discover "favorite projections" on right mouse click
Enable "save in native MapInfo format" box when opening a shapefile
Wrong Projection with BING Maps
Ideas/requests addressed in MapInfo Pro v2019
SQL Select window to contain an Outside or similar operator
Adding Python documentation for MapInfo
Populate the new SQL window with the syntax from a query run in the old SQL window.
Alternate licensing model
Add style override during Select/SQL process
Option to Turn off Multi-Page Layouts
Linked SQL based on queries - not only on base tables
Ideas/requests addressed in MapInfo Pro v17.0
Moving the "select" and "unselect" button of the browser window directly in the toolbar
Moving inside the map window while using the "Info" tool
Icon options
Layer Control - double click on Thematic item text to open thematic properties
- https://ideas.precisely.com/ideas/MIPRO-I-545
- A thematic layer now behaves similar to a normal layer. Double-click on the thumbnail takes you to the Thematic properties. Double-click on the layer name opens up the Layer Properties dialog
Adding a Filter to the Thematic Map
Browse Table Loading Time (64-bit)
Layout Designer to Map Window sync
MapInfo Pro export to GML
Wiggling icons in explorer window
Ideas/requests addressed in MapInfo Pro v16.0
Zoom to a map object selected from a browser window
Event in MapInfo MapBasic
Make old icons available for the new Ribbon Interface
Halo - Text within Layout Window
Ideas/requests addressed in MapInfo Pro v15.2
Changing names of thematic map
Make Select Window dialog box dockable
Dynamic control of Layout Window (Graticule)
Minimize windows
Improving the draw scale bar tool
Improving the toolbar of the browser window
Apply label styles to multiple tables at once
How to use Windows copying for all of the text fields?
Add slider to control translucency in Layer Control
Please set 'show frame contents' to default to 'Always'
Recover off-screen Message window
MI v11 Layer Control
Ideas/requests addressed through add-ins
Node - Specify coordinates for an individual node
More than one previous view
Browse Table Loading Time (64-bit)
Other ideas/requests that we have marked as implemented
Find results should also zoom to the extent
Object editing - selecting, then making editable
Make the Snap key work. People who do coordinate geometry would appreciate it very very much.
Right-Click on table Row - Zoom to Selection Extents
Make MI more intuitive
- https://ideas.precisely.com/ideas/MIPRO-I-287
- This idea holds a lot of ideas on improving MapInfo Pro. Below I have listed and grouped the ideas that have been implemented over the last many versions
- Data management
- Ask to add table after save copy as
- This was added to MapInfo Pro v2017 as a checkbox in the Save Copy As dialog
- Image processing dies if the file is more than 20 MB
- MapInfo Pro Advanced that was added with 64-bit has not a limit as such when it comes to raster image file sizes
- Processing large data just kills MapInfo Pro
- 64-bit MapInfo Pro is far better at handling big datasets. With added the new Extended Tab format (NativeX) where the 2GB file sizes limitation has been removed, and it also has support for up to 999 columns.
- Save copy as to save more than one file
- MapInfo Pro v2021 allows you to save multiple tables into new formats
- Update multiple columns
- MapInfo Pro v2019 - The SQL Window allows you to build more advanced Update statements that updates multiple columns or set conditions on which records to update
- Persistent queries after save and refresh
- MapInfo Pro v2021 - Added support for refresh queries without removing these from windows.
- Query
- All functions should be available in drop-down lists of queries, ie mod
- MapInfo Pro v2019 - the function list has been refreshed to hold all available Mapbasic functions
-
- Queries to show list for an attribute so it can be selected, not guessed
- MapInfo Pro v2019 added support for Values dropdown in the SQL Window and v2021 added this to the new Select by Attribute dialog too.
-
- MapBasic is old and should go. Use .net or at least vb
- MapBasic will never go away but we have added other programming methods like .NET and Python
- Mapping
- Combine layer control and table list, do all tasks, refresh more than one table
- 64-bit MapInfo Pro has combined the Layer Control and the Table List in the Explorer window with multiple operations available through the context menus
-
- Show all symbology of layer objects
- 64-bit MapInfo Pro show style swatches for Theme and Global Style in Layer List
-
- Have live grid/graticule and moves with map
- MapInfo Pro v15.0 added support for dynamic and fixed grid lines
-
- Layout window and map window have the same scale
- In 64-bit MapInfo Pro, map window is now embedded in Layout)
-
- Toolbars Not customisable, only via menu file, always moving around, especially when logged in from another PC
- 64-bit MapInfo Pro customizable ribbon and mini toolbars
- Useability
- More than one previous view.
- Through Zoom History add-in
-
- Retain size and position of message and info windows.
- 64-bit MapInfo Pro can store the position of all tool windows
-
- Save workspace with one button, not three steps.
- This has been fixed in 64-bit MapInfo Pro.
- Stop jumping out off MapInfo after processing something.
- This has been fixed in 64-bit MapInfo Pro
- Stop layer control from refreshing the list and going to the top of the list:
- This has been fixed in 64-bit MapInfo Pro
- Store MapBasic user-defined commands (if MB continued):
- You can create custom functions through MapBasic and publish these into MapInfo Pro
The long list above does not include
the 86 ideas that we listed back in November 2020 after the release of MapInfo Pro v2019.
So if you have ideas on how we can improve our favorite mapping application, do add your idea to
the Ideas Portal. It can also be a good idea to post a link to the MapInfo Pro Community so that we can discuss the idea here too.
Do you see any specific new features from the list above that are going to make a big difference to you? Maybe you even have a top-3?
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Peter Horsbøll Møller
Principal Presales Consultant | Distinguished Engineer
Precisely | Trust in Data
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