Use a different shape to show the bus heading

[boblothrope]

Please use a shape other than an equilateral triangle to show which direction a bus is moving. It's really hard to figure out the direction, especially if the bus is on a curve or intersection.

It would also be helpful if it identified if buses are heading inbound or outbound, maybe by using different colors, labeling the icons, or adding a mouse-hover tooltip.

[jeffkaufman]

To determine which way a bus is heading, click on the bus and its route will be highlighted. I need to make this more obvious, as people don't guess that clicking on the bus will do something useful. Maybe I should make this happen on hover instead of on click?

For bus shape, right now I'm using an equilateral triangle because google makes these markers available:

• http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/dir_0.png
• http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/dir_3.png
• http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/dir_6.png
• ...
• http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/dir_117.png

I tried to make my own markers, but it's actually somewhat tricky. You need to have about 120 of them (one for every three degrees, the whole way around the circle) and they need to be partly transparent. It may be that there's an easier way than writing my own program to generate them, but I'm not sure there is.

[jeffkaufman]

I've now switched it so that it colors the route when you hover over the bus.

Isosceles triangle markers would be better, but unless someone else makes them I'm probably going to take a while to get around to them.

[jeffkaufman]

Clicking on a bus now shows times where the bus will be next. Still not as good as better icons, but until I can figure out how to make some, I hope it will be helpful.

[jeffkaufman]

I figured out how to make the icons. They are now slightly pointy in the direction the bus is headed.