Comments on: Beta version of new Campus Map Available

By: Ian McBride

Ian McBride — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:36:32 +0000

The Campus Tree Map, created by Tim Parsons, is now available on our new Campus Map. Select 'Trees' from the Categories menu to show all the trees on campus. Click on one of the placemarks to learn more about a specific tree, including its trunk diameter, height, and spread. You can also browse the Tree Map in Google Earth on Tim's blog.

By: Ian McBride

Ian McBride — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:02:37 +0000

I should explain, the values in the “Locations” drop down are all single-valued physical buildings whereas the “Departments” drop down is a multi-valued taxonomy system. I might change this so that the “Locations” drop down is populated by location.name instead of node.title, since location.name is multi-valued, but I’ll need to check and see how well the location.name field was populated when I managed the data import.

In the mean time, I’ve added “Libraries” to the Departments list and set both MBH and LIB to belong to both the Libraries and Library & Information Services departments.

You comment did make me think of a rather obvious feature that’s currently missing: keyword search, so I’ll make sure to add that. Thanks!

By: Carrie Macfarlane

Carrie Macfarlane — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:05:18 +0000

Cool, thanks Ian! It’s an exciting improvement over the older version.

A few thoughts:
-Would you add “Armstrong Library” to the “Locations” list?
-Would it be possible to create a new location called “Libraries” that highlights both Armstrong and Davis Family Library? We’re trying to put together a set of links that will help new students get oriented to the libraries. Since the list is alphabetical and our library names start with ‘A’ for Armstrong and ‘D’ for Davis, a general “Libraries” entry could be useful.
-For “Library and Information Services,” in the “Departments” list, could you also highlight Armstrong?

Thanks!

By: Ian McBride

Ian McBride — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:06:03 +0000

Thanks for the feedback, Terry. I’ve removed the entry for the Music Library. As I mentioned, some of these entries are quite out of date — I think the description for the Franklin Center at Hillcrest still says that it’s about to open.

I agree with you that the building outlines don’t look as good as they could. Part of the problem is getting the balance right between large and small buildings. Without the fill color, the outline is barely noticeable on house-sized locations, but the fill looks really bad on spaceship-sized buildings. I’m thinking of adding some buttons to the right of the map that let you toggle between filled-in, just the outline, and no outline at all.

By: Terry Simpkins

Terry Simpkins — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:00:26 +0000

Hi Ian,
Nice job! 2 comments:
1) You can remove the reference to the Music Library being in the CFA. It’s now in Davis. I suggest removing the Music Library entry entirely (i.e. not changing the reference to point to Davis)
2) On the maps for the individual entries, I find the outlines filled in with blue to be sort of obtrusive. Personally, I’d prefer just having the outline (without the blue fill), to allow users to actually see the birds-eye view of the building. Or maybe a fill that’s partially transparent. Anyway, my .02.

Thanks again!