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Subject: 
Re: New World LUG Map demo
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Mon, 14 Apr 2003 05:11:55 GMT
Viewed: 
411 times
  
A quick progress update...

In lugnet.announce, Todd Lehman wrote:
[...] Please consider the maps to be an "alpha" release.

I just put up version 0.5 tonight, which should also be considered "alpha"
quality.

* the ability to click on a country and zoom the map,

I took a stab at this today and I don't like the results.  Mainly, I haven't
figured out yet how to load a target URL into the same viewport.  (Anyone?)
When you click on a country right now, it does go to a new SVG map, zoomed
in to fit that country, but it loads the SVG file into the map browser
window (erasing the whole HTML page) instead of replacing the current map.

[...] I'm not ready to document publicly yet how to embed these in an FTX
page because the syntax is still subject to change, [...]

Ok, I think the FTX syntax for this is stabile enough to start documenting.
Actually, I haven't documented it yet in the FTX guide -- so for now please
still consider it "undocumented."  But if you want to give it a try, feel
free to visit the map tool page

   http://www.lugnet.com/test/map/

and make yourself a map and cut & paste the FTX snippet given below the map.

You might be wondering why the "From" and "To" sections are grayed out.
It's because I haven't implemented that part yet.  What you'll be able to do
is say, "Make me a map of this area that shows all the LEGO events that
happened between this date and that date," or, "Show me all the events that
are coming up in the next three months."

I completed the date-range filtering and am mostly happy with it, but it
would still be nice to be able to denote the concept of "within the next x
days or weeks or months" for an automatically rolling timeframe.

Anyway, you can now go have a visual look at all the groups that were formed
during, say, the year 2002, and then compare that to the year 2001.  Or view
all the groups that were in existence during 1985-1997.

Please be aware that the "map explorer utility" does not represent an
attempt at a final user interface for the map.  Rather, it is a test-bed for
the underlying functionality.  Casual users will probably never see this
page after the map goes live.  In the live map, it would also be really nice
to be able to toggle a set of checkboxes or drop-down selections to alter
the dataset in real-time -- for example, clicking [ ] Trains on and off
would show/hide the Train Clubs layer of data interactively.  If you change
change the year, it should change the data dynamically as well.  Again
that's for a "final product" and not for these development milestone tests.

Just for fun I'll probably add a
button you can click that will animate the events in time -- so you'd see
little circles popping up and fading away as time progressed forward.  The
same could be done for the formation of user groups over time.

I'm thinkin' this is a necessity.  It's just too yummy to skip.  It's not
officially on my to-do list yet, though.

Also on my to-do list for this:
* Make a friendly intro page.  The overall resource needs to be as easy
  to use as the current World LUG Map is before it can replace that.

Probably after I get back from Portland/San Francisco at the end of April.
Or maybe while I'm there.

* Make a page where people can add their own club events (date & location).

For May.

* Make a page where people can request that their club be added.

Needed soon.

* Improve performance of new-map generation in the case of cache misses.

Not super important yet.

* Document the FTX syntax used to embed map views on-site.

Partially done though the cut & paste text edit box shown beneath the map on
the explorer page.  I'll put this into the FTX guide along with a couple
other upcoming goodies soon.

* Document the HTML syntax used to embed map views from off-site.
  (You'll be allowed to link directly to the graphical map data file on
  the LUGNET server and easily embed maps in your own web pages.)

Done as much as it's gonna be, I guess.

* Investigate possibility of displaying static GIF images for browsers
  that don't support SVG.
* Investigate other cartographic projections.
* Investigate customization ("skinning") with external XML style sheets.

No progress on these yet.

--Todd



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: New World LUG Map demo
 
(...) If you zoom in on a country, like here: (URL) my browser, the selected (white) country appears black when you mouse over the text of a LUG, or when you mouse out of the country. Is this a known bug? I just updated my SVG viewer. -Tim (21 years ago, 14-Apr-03, to lugnet.admin.general)

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