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BiologicalRecordsCentre / iRecord

Repository to store and track enhancements, issues and tasks regarding the iRecord website.
http://irecord.org.uk
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Mapping enhancement requests #1710

Open kitenetter opened 2 months ago

kitenetter commented 2 months ago

Capturing this request from a verifier for future consideration.

At the moment, the verification page map has fixed dimensions. If I want to see my whole vice-county on the map I have to zoom out, which then causes an automatic change to the mapping resolution. The two changes I propose would give the user more control over the behaviour:

  1. Allow the map rectangle to be re-sized by the user.
  2. Allow the user to select the mapping resolution they'd like to use, rather than iRecord choosing this for us (automatic resizing could still be one of the options, but alongside monad, tetrad, icosipentad etc.)

The site already maps records at different resolutions - all we're talking about here is giving the user more control over that, rather than it being decided algorithmically based on the zoom level (although offering that option as well is fine). So maybe two controls: a "Automatically choose plotting resolution" Yes/No control, and if the user selects No, a second control is shown which enables the resolution to be specified (I'd suggest options of 10km, 5km, 2km, 1km, 100m, 10m and a special option of "as per the specified Grid Ref" (i.e. for this last one, as per the current behaviour when the user is zoomed fully in, where each record is displayed at the resolution its location information was provided at).

Not yet prioritised, partly due to concerns over added complexity to the verification page, and not clear what the demand is among verifiers generally. The verifier who requested this subsequently indicated that he was hoping for better mapping tools in general, and that this didn't have to be implemented on the verification page.

Point 1 We could consider making the various 'panes' within the verification page re-sizeable (i.e. map pane, details pane, grid pane). Not sure if there is sufficient demand for it to be worth the investment.

Point 2 The ability to specify the mapping resolution would be helpful, although it could be quite complex given the multiple layers that can be displayed on the map, and the multiple levels of grid ref precision that the records in iRecord may have. At the moment the verification map displays all records regardless of grid ref precision, so if we were to give options such as monad or tetrad display we'd have to work out what to do about the records at 10 km square level etc. And we'd have to work out whether the choice should only apply to records in the grid, or to the layer for all records of the currently chosen taxon. And how to deal with input coordinates vs output grid ref, both of which can be useful in different contexts.

Whether this complexity needs to be added to the verification page is debatable, and maybe this is a case for developing the county-based mapping tools that have had some preliminary work done on them by @burkmarr

DavidHepper commented 2 months ago

Nested scroll bars are one of my bugbears. Could this resizing avoid having one for the outer window and an internal one for the Grid pane? iRecord currently forgets many settings across sessions and sometimes within them. I suggest that for configurable maps to be worthwhile the user would need the facility to save these preferences reliably in the account profile.