Last week we announced the release of UMap v1.2 release candidate, today we are rolling out the actual release. The new version of the component is available for download, here is the list of bug fixes:

1. SmartPosition group bug in MarkerManager
2. Powered by copyright message can be changed or turn of: CopyrightControl.EXTRA_COPYRIGHT = "";
3. Levels in Polyline removed
4. PositionControl double buttons bug
5. Bad marker position in CloudMadeProvider when tile size not equals 256

We’ve just rolled out the new version of our UMap Flash/Flex Component with bug fixes to the Zoomify provider and the marker manager. Also included in this release are two awesome new features: a new provider and circles.

New CloudMade Provider
We are very excited to announce the integration of CloudMade as a new provider for UMap. CloudMade makes high quality tiles for web and mobile applications. Using this new provider is simple. All you need is an API key from CloudMade, and the following code:

Circles
We are also very excited to announce that we are one of the first APIs to include support for circles. Adding circles is also very easy, as they work just like any other overlay:

UMap is free for personal use and costs $450.00 for commercial purposes. For more information see the UMap component page.

UMapper is our new universal, web-based map building application. It allows you to visually build maps on top of several tile providers and then embed them on your website, social networking profile, etc. It has been publicly available for just a few months and, already, we’ve been getting several favorable reviews:

Thanks to everyone who wrote a review! If you have any suggestions for UMapper, or if you have recently reviewed it, please let us know.

In the recently released v1.1 of the UMap Flash/Flex Component, we introduced web services from GeoNames. Web services are available both commercially and for free.

What are GeoNames Web Services?
The GeoNames Geographical database contains place names, elevation, population, geo-tagged Wikipedia articles and other various data tied to locations. UMap harnesses the power of the GeoNames web services hooked to this database to help you find locations, or provide you with more data about your locations. For example, you could search for “Denver, CO” and then add a marker with the returned latitude and longitude. Or, for a specific latitude and longitude location, you could search and return the elevation, etc.

What are the advantages to a commercial account?
The GeoNames commercial web services are the right choice for you if you need fast, reliable response time and you want to be sure the service keeps on running.

• Faster response times
• Upgraded servers processing fewer requests
• Tested data
• Fail-over for nearly 100% up-time
• Access charts to illustrate requests coming from your application

For more information on commercial accounts, contact Marc Wick at GeoNames.

Since we added the example of UMap on our home page, we’ve had a few people ask about adding a color transform to the tiles in UMap. Here is an explanation, a code example, and a tutorial on how you can add UMap inside a container and then apply a color transform to it’s container.

We are using a ColorMatrixFilter to transform the color in UMap. We are creating a matrix that is used to process and transform the pixels in the map tiles. We can use this technique to add or remove color, enhance contrast, or take away all color. For more information about how to manipulate the matrix please see this article in Adobe’s Flash Developer Center.

import flash.filters.ColorMatrixFilter;

var matrix:Array = new Array();

matrix = matrix.concat([1, 0, 0, 0, 0]);// red
matrix = matrix.concat([0, 1, 0, 0, 0]);// green
matrix = matrix.concat([0, 0, 1, 0, 0]);// blue
matrix = matrix.concat([0, 0, 0, 1, 0]);// alpha

var cmFilter = new ColorMatrixFilter(matrix);
var filter=new Array();
filter.splice(0,1,cmFilter);

//mcMapContainer is the movie clip where UMap is inside.
mcMapContainer.filters=filter;

Here is a tutorial that covers building an application where users can change the color of UMap.

We’ve just rolled out FLV Player (AS 3.0) Basic Skins v2.1, which fixes a bug where seeking past the loaded amount would cause the player to freeze. If you already own this component, it has been added to your account automatically. If not, you can get your copy here.

Yesterday, we rolled out v1.1 RC of our UMap Flash/Flex Component. The new version includes new image info windows (shown above) and improvements to MarkerManager and GeocoderManager. One important update to note is that now GeocoderManager supports commercial web services from GeoNames. To use the new service with your existing GeoNames username, set it in GeocoderManager:

var g:GeocoderManager = new GeocoderManager(new GeoNamesService(GeoNamesService.BEST_PRICE,"user"));

For a complete list of updates and changes, see the “Release Notes” section on the UMap Homepage.

If you have previously downloaded UMap, the new version has been added to your account. If not, you can get free and commercial copies of the component here.