Placing the tiny Google maps locator person where you want him

Perhaps the most useful post of the year thus far. I’ve never heard of this technique before.

I tried this, and all it does is make smudges on my screen.

I’m glad my hint was so useful to everyone. To be honest, I’d never considered dragging the icon. Didn’t know that was a feature. And probably will never use it, since just clicking on a line is more convenient.

Phineas J. Whoopee, you’re the greatest!

Thanks, LSLGuy.

BTW, you don’t have to be in Satellite mode, as I misstated earlier, it actually works better in “Map Mode(?).”

ETA: Satellite Mode gives you the white line.

When you first get into street view the arrow keys won’t work - until you
click on the view (anywhere).

Thank you for clearing that up. Again, that’s something I would not have thought would make a difference, but I can see why it would. You can also use the up and down arrow keys to zoom up and down the street.

Do you mean zoom as in “enlarge and get closer” or zoom as in “race up and down the streets”?

Being literal-minded is a blessing curse.

The up-down arrows move you from one image point to the next. That is, move down the street. As I said above, but didn’t use the word “zoom”, the plus-minus keys zoom in or out.

Yes, I meant move up and down the street, and it can feel like “zooming” along if the distance traveled is several houses at a time. In my enthusiasm for this new (to me) discovery, I temporarily forgot about the other meaning of “zoom.”

Wheee! Joyriding on Google maps! Knocking down garbage cans and bashing mailboxes! Oh…wait… :blush:

I have to imagine a Google camera car has done exactly that at least once. Whether or not on purpose. I bet they don’t use the recording though.

In my experience, Pegman is 90% guaranteed to be facing the opposite direction from where I want to look.

Dragging him to the side of the street you want to look at should result in him facing that side. Sometimes he’ll face the street itself, though.

ISTR this being more intuitive, with a viewing arc being displayed.

Now I see that I should have read the thread first.

Yeah, when I was a kid we had a ginormous, two-volume dictionary set that rested on its side. Whatever book you needed was always the one on the bottom.

You’ve got to stop pointing him at strip clubs, Barney Pegman is bashful.