This has occurred now on two different files. As I navigate up and down through levels, the x,y pos of the map jumps to extremes: either 0,0 or n,n. The steps to reproduce are:
Any suggestions?
I’m on Catalina 10.15.5 and TBX Version 8.7.1 (b467)
All the notes in the sample file’s container were thousands of map units from the origin.
If a map view has no selection, as is the case when using down-arrow to zoom into a container, I believe Tinderbox zooms to the origin, {0,0}, assuming that this is likely to be a good place to look. In this map, everything was far from the origin, and it was a bad place to look! (Perhaps the center of the bounding box, or the centroid of the map items, would be a better choice.)
We’ll try to address this, but moving the notes closer to {0,0} resolves the issue.
Separate from above issue:
Is there anyway to maintain the last position of a map in a previous layer? I’m going down levels and when I come back up, the map is not in the same spot as before.
This is automatic, though rounding errors and overflows can cause trouble in maps that are very far from the origin.
(This may be associated with working in maps that are highly miniaturized; you could drag everything a long ways!)
This is interesting because it relates to one of my frustrations with TB, namely that I was forever ending up on a blank screen, and torn between zooming in so that I could read the notes, and zooming out so that I could find them. Obviously there must be coordinates to identify where notes are placed on the map, but I had not realised that these coordinates were ever accessible to users.
Is it possible to constrain the size of the map that appears inside a particular container, so that notes do not get lost miles away, with the option to extend it so that the map can grow in a more organised way?
No, maps are unbounded - they add more space as needed.
As regards a the parent container viewport, the controls you do have are:
When navigating up, the expectation is to return to “approximately their location when zooming into the container”. Things like smart adornments have no effect on where you end up.
On a blank bit of map? Try any of:
If you want to know where you are on a map, right-click the map background and the top line of the context menu will show you your {X,Y} co-ordinates. If a note is selected, left-click the background to de-select it and then right-click.
If you can repeatably end up in the wrong 9i.e. blank’ space by all means upload a samll TBX showing the issue so others can try to reproduce and diagnose the cause.
HTH. 
There does seem to be a bit of confusion regarding attributes. At least, I am one user who was confused, though I am less so now – mainly thanks to various people who post on these forums.
And older discussion but just wanted to jump in to say this has solved a confusion for me - I didn’t understand why the containers at the top map level were far away from the point I came to when I returned from inside a container - the mention of coordinates suddenly clicked. As long as I make sure the containers/notes in a map are centred near the 0,0 coordinate, they’re right there when I navigate to that view. Thank you!
Yes, the centroid of the map items would be a much better choice.
If someone has been populating a map “blindly,” for instance by using Outline view to move items into a container that is then opened as a Map, Tinderbox’s default placement seems to put items very far away from the origin.
I don’t know how you would do it programmatically, but “never open to an empty window if Map items exist” seems like a reasonable user expectation.