You can download tours that you create with MapsAlive if you want to host them on your own web server or run them on a PC or Mac. A downloaded tour is a read-only copy that you can run, but cannot edit. To edit a tour, you use the MapsAlive Tour Builder. You must have an active MapsAlive membership and be logged in to use the MapsAlive Tour Builder. If your membership expires, you can still run your downloaded tours if they are hosted on your own server or locally on your computer, but you can no longer edit them.
Important : Download is an optional feature. You do not have to download your tours . As long as you have an active MapsAlive membership, your tours are hosted, can be viewed online, and are available for editing at MapsAlive.com.
Download is available with a Paid Membership, but not with a Free Membership.
What is a Downloaded Tour?
A downloaded tour is a collection of various web site files that make up a tour. Among these files are your tour's map and photo images. Everything that is needed to run the tour is included. This means you can run a downloaded tour in a web browser even when you don't have an internet connection (does not apply to tours that use the Live Data feature).
Requirements
Using a downloaded tour is easy, but there are a few requirements. The first is that you must know how to unzip a zip file so that the tour's files all reside in their own folder. The folder can be located on your hard drive, a CD or DVD, or a portable Flash drive.
If you plan to host the tour on your own server, you must also have a way to upload the unzipped files from your computer to your web server. MapsAlive does not provide this capability (it is usually done with something called an FTP program). Any web server can host a MapsAlive tour (the tour files are completely self-contained and require no database or server-side support).
To run the tour directly from your computer, you may need to change your Adobe Flash Player settings to avoid a security warning that is harmless, but will prevent the tour from running. The steps to make this change are explained in a ReadMe file included with the other downloaded tour files. To change the settings, the computer must have access to the internet; however, once the settings have been changed, the computer can run downloaded tours without internet access. A computer that cannot access the internet to change the settings might not be able to run downloaded tours.
How to Download a Tour
To create a download file, you click the Download button in the MapsAlive Tour Preview. MapsAlive creates a sip file and then displays the link for it. When you click the link, a dialog box appears asking where on your computer you want to download to. After you choose a location, the tour is downloaded as a single zip (compressed) file. You must then unzip the file into a folder on your computer. You can run the tour from the folder, or upload the contents of the folder to another web server.
More Information
For more information about downloaded tours, see the ReadMe file that is included in the downloaded tour's zip file.