As I'm really into geography and maps, I've always had maps with countries in my collections marked. Updating the map manually after every time I found a new item in one of my 4 collections, was annoying, so I decided to use Colnect lists and create this tool. I hope it can be useful for some other collectors who like seeing their collection growing as well 
Currently the map is live - new items marked on Colnect are shown immediately.
Notice: Right now this is an external project in its alpha version which connects to Colnect via Colnect API, parses downloaded countries list and draws the map using ammap library. It is possible to create a link to it in your user profile (see my Colnect profile for example), but it is impossible to show the map on your profile page. If many users like this, in the future it might become an integrated Colnect tool, which would be able to appear on profile page.
There are few modes available:
- all items from category
- compare swap with collection - shows ONLY countries which user A has on swap list, and user B does NOT have in collection
Meaning: new countries for B's collection in case of their swap - countries not in collection - historic - shows only countries which user doesn't have in collection, taking all historic countries in consideration
Example: I have coins from United States of America, but I don't have coins from Confederate States of America - so USA is shown - countries not in collection - geographic - shows only countries which user doesn't have in collection, taking in consideration only geography
Example: I have coins from Belgian Congo, so Congo isn't shown, even if I don't have Democratic Republic of Congo in my collection.
Notice: This doesn't show countries that are not yet on Colnect - so if there are no coins from South Sudan, South Sudan will not be shown as "country not in collection". - collection / swap list / wish list
- items not in collection - shows all items which are not in collection, so even 1 item is enough to show a country
- unmarked - shows all items which are not on collection, swap list or wish list
User can also choose two versions of map: high quality and low quality. High quality map can be slow on some computers, but it will show all small countries - low quality map is faster and smoother, but doesn't contain everything (especially small island countries).
Countries not shown on the map (because of quality, or "countries" like "Unknown") are listed next to it.
In case of older countries which contained many current countries (like USSR or Yugoslavia) as well as for international organisations (for example West African States issuing coins together) user can choose three options:
- Show - shows them on map by groupping included countries together and changing their colour
- Show but don't link - only changes colour of included countries, but doesn't group them
- Don't show - those countries aren't shown and but appear on the "not on map" list
The map is available for testing on [404 LINK REMOVED] - feel free to play with it. If you notice something bad happening, please report it here.
Few examples with screenshots:
1. Map showing all Transportation Tickets on Colnect (which I've set as deafult): [404 LINK REMOVED]
2. Map showing countries that I don't have in my coins collection - geographically: [404 LINK REMOVED]
3. The same, but taking all historic countries in account: [404 LINK REMOVED]
4. Hernan's collection of coins: [404 LINK REMOVED]
5. Vadym's swap list of coins, using simpler version of the map: [404 LINK REMOVED]
Plans for the future:
- Caching of generated lists
- Countries not in collection - showing also countries which are not yet on Colnect
- Better representation of small islands - currently hard to spot (high quality map)
- Mobile-friendly version - this one was only briefly tested under Android
- Heat map - colours changing according to number of items
- Customisable colours
All bug reports and suggestions for changes are welcome!
