Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the note.
Ack. How's that for an inauspicious debut...
That's what I get for adding a last minute shortcut. It ought to work now.
In general, your load time ought to be less than 2 seconds. Our
server's connection also isn't quite optimized yet (it's sitting in
an office right now), so load times might also vary depending on
other traffic.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
B
At 1:52 p -0400 9/12/06, Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
Hi Ben,
I get a javascript error:
doctopicsEl has no properties gishistory.js (line 113)
And the Loading...111.109 message continues far longer than I was
willing to wait. How far does it have to get on the initial load?
-Steve
Ben Loh wrote:
Hi folks,
I just thought I'd share our new web site prototype for exploring
historical census data intended for high school and college
students. Obviously, it's based on mapserver. We're using
php-mapscript with AJAX for the interface. I'd be very interested
in any input that any of you have, as we're not GIS pros.
The main url: <http://www.gisforhistory.org/>
A direct link to a map:
<http://www.gisforhistory.org/projects/greatmigration/?defaultView=map>
A few highlights:
* We're using historically accurate county maps from NHGIS along
with historical US census data from 1790 through 1970, and a few
layers that we constructed ourselves. (One big issue we have right
now is that we aren't using simplified shape files for the
counties, so the load time is rather slow. My guess is that we can
cut down the load time by about half with simpler shapes.).
* To help students keep track of what they're doing, we implemented
a "Query History" that records each click/setting they make ala
Photoshop's history feature.
* You can pan ala google maps by dragging the map. (We're still
troubleshooting a problem with Win IE where if you have the
"Temporary Internet Files" setting set to "Every visit to the page"
we run into caching issues while dragging).
* We're using AJAX to try to minimize bandwidth issues, as many
schools have a narrow pipe. (We're still trying to optimize
loading. The legend is generated dynamically via javascript and css
to minimize the number of files that need to be downloaded from the
server with any single call).
* The site is intended for novices, so it is deliberately simple.
We'd love to hear any suggestions or rants!
Thanks,
Ben
--
b e n l o h . . . i n q u i r i u m
. design for learning . mobile 773-220-8889 (primary line)
. http://www.inquirium.net . voice 773-947-0450
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