But I think of code very visually and spatially and I don't split files until I have to, so it does help me quickly navigate to be able to sort of see the "shape" of a file and to be able to quickly jump around in it, especially if the file is divided into clear sections. Mostly just personal preference, and I agree they should never be mandatory.
And agreed on the large images/maps, most image editors have a viewport feature like that and it's pretty useful when doing detail work.
I use the minimap a lot, as a much better scrollbar. I tend to work on long files and even if I am rarely looking directly at the minimap, it is in my field of view and I often subconsciously glance at it.
This kind of feature is clearly no one-size0-fits-all, but it would be a mistake to consider it is useless because you don't like it.
It's for looking at the shape of the code, not the contents. Also VSCode for example will show errors highlighted in red in the minimap as well, which makes them easier to navigate to.
- (Linter) Warnings (in most themes a yellow or orange), like compile errors
- Marks for recently edited sections of code (in most themes a blue). Those marks are also shown in the left hand gutter beside lines but I think they are sometimes too subtle there, but their mini-map counterparts are less subtle.
- Current global search results (a bright gray or sometimes yellow, depending on theme)
- Current file search results (a slightly different gray)
- Current "active token" search results (another gray), such as when you put the cursor mid-word and VS Code naturally highlights all the other uses of that word
- Indicators for all of the lines containing your cursors when using multi-cursor (Alt+click to add additional cursors), which can be very useful to watch in large files with a bunch of shared refactors spread out over some distance
That's just off the top of my head because I use all of those to navigate some source documents.
I think one of the "shape of the code" things not everyone appreciates as well is that some languages create more interesting shapes than others. There are some languages where every file creates a very similar looking waterfall and there are others where the landmarks are much more obvious. Ironically it is sometimes the worst languages that have the most visually distinguishable shapes and where I find I appreciate the minimap most of all. You can visually see sections that began as copied and pasted duplicates, you can see the places where lines are highly repetitive and often those correspond to key patterns of very explicit landmarks ("there's the save code, you can tell because all the field string names are on the left side of assignments; there's the load code, you can tell because all the field string names are on the right side of assignments"). You can't make out the individual words, but you can certainly see those "blocks" like that from that "ten thousand foot view".
There's probably a visual processing/pattern matching thing about minimaps in general that some people have an easier time with than others. I've always liked a good map, regardless of context, so minimaps have always seemed useful to me. Map reading is a large combination of subtle skills, and I have just enough childhood training and natural aptitude that I have a great baseline for just about any map. I appreciate not everyone has those same skills, especially not in the weird arrangement that I do.
Bring back actual scrollbars! Or at least make it possible to turn them on.
At least while coding this is actually pretty old school to have no scrollbar at all. My emacs has no gui elements. I dont need them. I see a 89% to know where I am right now but this information is actually not really useful.
I move expression/function/method/bookmark wise for and backward or I just search and leave marks where I to jump back later. I really avoid touching my mouse and my window manager (xmonad) and development environment are entirely keyboard driven. I tried minmaps, its just distracting eye candy maybe a bit usefull while reviewing a codebase or looking for something.
But if the content is, say, HTML, or LaTeX, or a Word document, then I can see a visual representation being more useful. It would be interesting to know if there's some correlation between people liking/disliking minimaps and the type of content they tend to view/edit.
Now, I use it all the time, that's essentially a better scroll bar. In fact, the moment I saw the mini-map on the linked websites, I instantly tried to use it as a scrollbar, and was very disappointed to see that it didn't work.
After the spaces vs tabs war calmed down let's see what will be the aftermath of the minimap invasion
I would find this very useful on a site like Wikipedia where I often know the section I want to jump to before landing on the page. (e.g. I want to see the number of goals Messi has scored each season at Barcelona and I know there's always a table at the bottom of most wiki articles regarding historical stats for soccer-players). I could see from the mini-map where the tables are jump straight to it.
Like you said, the the text is too small to make out where you're going or navigating. But most often I find myself visiting sites that I've visited in the past and for those I have a good mental image of what the page already looks like. I can use the hints from a minimap to jump to the relevant section of the page.
1. Stuff is too small to really make out where I'm going or navigating.
2. Short or long pages, both don't really benefit from the loss of screen real-estate. Or the distraction really.
3. Other tools like a proper index with descriptive headers, or the search function work so much better to navigate the page.
Where mini-maps could be awesome are large images, or maps. They tend to visual in nature, and when zoomed in you can look at the mini-map to see where you are in the whole. Which is useful.
So, cool future, but this doesn't really seem like a great implementation.