Map It doesn't work to show the results of a search of any fields in the Building database

[EveSnyder]

Unable to map the results of a search on building type, stories, year built, street name etc. The search in the database works but when you click map it, it sends you to The Forge where you get the results of whatever previous search you mapped. For example I tried to map the results of the search for religious, then commercial buildings. Both times it sent me to The Forge and when I clicked the magnifying glass it revealed the search on Black, Mulatto in the 1880 census that I had done earlier. I then tried filtering on other things in the building records and mapping them and got the same results. Now that I'm thinking about this it makes sense since the search panel on The Forge is limited to census searches so perhaps it is an unintended consequence of adding that panel and I haven't tried to map buildings in a while but we still have the Map It button on the buildings database page and the ability to map buildings again would be good.

[dfurber]

I suspect it is an accident indeed that buildings has the "Map It" button, but still I should make it work rather than remove it.

[EveSnyder]

Thanks, I don't remember it ever not being there. I think it's an important feature, especially for new installations who might do more with their building records than we have in the past. Sorry it's a pain but it will be worth it. I did just try it and now, after sorting on building type for example, and then clicking map it, it no longer goes to the previous search results, it now shows all the results which is better than before. I'm not a fan of having the map revert to the results of a previous search, I think it would be better in general for it to go back to all of the data like it used to.

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 6:51 AM David Furber @.***> wrote:

I suspect it is an accident indeed that buildings has the "Map It" button, but still I should make it work rather than remove it.

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[dfurber]

I saw in the code that it was supposed to work, and figured out why. Should be working now.

[EveSnyder]

It didn't work. I was in the town of Caroline checking out that new feature on The Forge so when I went to buildings and sorted on Religious it only gave me the 4 in Caroline. When I switched the dropdown from Caroline to Show All and then hit map it, it didn't map any buildings. When I repeated the search just for Caroline, it didn't map the 4 buildings either.

On Sun, Jan 28, 2024 at 12:57 PM David Furber @.***> wrote:

I saw in the code that it was supposed to work, and figured out why. Should be working now.

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[dfurber]

I think the fact that you were able to see the 4 religious buildings in Caroline suggests that the feature indeed works, but might not play well with the dropdown. However I just tried what you described and it worked as expected. Please take screenshots next time. I think maybe you had some additional filters applied, or that there is an undiagnosed issue with the location switcher dropdown.

[EveSnyder]

Here's search 1 using locality Caroline-I get the 4 religious buildings:

I mapped it and nothing:

Here's search 2 using Caroline from the drop down on the menu bar:

I mapped it and it centered Caroline (at least Brooktondale) but still nada:

Then I filtered on locality Caroline while Caroline was selected on the menu bar. Nothing again What did you do that made it work that I haven't done?

I understand why you added the localities icon on The Forge so we can limit the list of historic map layers and center the locality. That works well. The "Showing All" dropdown on the menu bar is confusing especially because we can already filter on locality in each database and public users might use it to try to find records for localities we don't yet have or have much of. I wish that would make them think: "geez, they need help in this area, maybe I should volunteer," but something tells me it will have the opposite effect.

[dfurber]

I have no idea. While the first three screenshots are broken images, here's what I see:

1. When I go to Buildings and select Locality -> Town of Caroline and Building Type => religious, I see 4 results on the list.
2. When I click Map It, it centers on Ithaca so I see nothing. If it move the map down route 79 until I get to Caroline, I see 2 in Brooktondale and 2 in Slaterville Springs.
3. Then I click "Caroline" in the dropdown on top, and it centers on Brooktondale. I see the 2 churches there, and the 2 in Slaterville Springs in the top right corner.
4. Then I click on "Town of Ithaca" and I see nothing in Caroline when I scroll over to it.
5. Then I click on "Show all" and scroll over to Caroline, and there are the 4 churches.

You must have a strange power user trick that is confusing it.

[dfurber]

In any case the issue is with the "showing all" locality dropdown in the header, and not with the "map it" button on the buildings page.

[EveSnyder]

I tried to map an ED for an Ithaca census yesterday and it took me to the Google map, without any red dots. Thinking it might be my computer, I asked Sarah to see if she could map things and she said it wasn't working for her either. I'm going to Mann Library today and I will use a public computer to see if it works on a computer without any HF history. I'll keep you posted.

On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 12:57 AM David Furber @.***> wrote:

In any case the issue is with the "showing all" locality dropdown in the header, and not with the "map it" button on the buildings page.

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[dfurber]

My hypothesis is that you tried to map an Ithaca census ED but were on some other locality in the dropdown, so that the locality dropdown cancelled out your search.

To test that hypothesis, I've made it so that if you've got a locality search going via the filters, then it ignores whatever you've selected in the header dropdown. So if you're on Caroline but do a search for Ithaca, it'll show you Ithaca.

[EveSnyder]

It's possible, but I'm pretty sure I checked to make sure the dropdown was either showing all or Ithaca (city). Either way, I was just able to map an Ithaca ED, that being said, when I went in and tried to map the original search on religious buildings in the locality Caroline as shown here:

It mapped the results of the same ED I had just mapped from the 1920 Ithaca census:

[EveSnyder]

Maybe this is part of the problem, on The Forge, with showing all on the dropdown menu, I selected the car icon and then clicked Town of Caroline:

This recentered the map on Brooktondale and changed the menu from select all to Caroline, but no data is associated with it:

[EveSnyder]

I'm a little confused as to the purpose of the "showing all" dropdown menu on the navbar. Could you explain why you went this route so I understand what you are trying to do with it and why it is needed? I understand why you created the ability to select a locality on The Forge, thank you for that. As to selecting a locality from the "showing all" dropdown, I assume its something related to future possibilities for the platform or something on the backend I don't understand, but as of now I'm just confused as to why we can't just filter on the locality in the census, buildings, and person databases, to limit the search as we have been?

[dfurber]

The purpose was to be able to work for a long time in Caroline without always having to set the locality filter on all the different screens. You jump around between people, buildings, census records, and the forge, for Caroline, without ever having to add the locality on those awful click click click click filters.

[dfurber]

Long-term I'd like to redo the filters so that it's like a search box and you something like: name="samuel johnson" age<40 sex=m, and have it autocomplete the field, the operator, and the values. But I fear that's a long way off because it'd take me a month or two of working on it.

[EveSnyder]

Thanks, that makes sense to me. We haven't done that much searching etc in Caroline yet so the current system isn't onerous and I haven't thought about what it would be like yet if we had to do that but you're right. Perhaps instead of Showing All, the dropdown might be called Localities so that new public users, as well as many of our volunteers, could more easily understand what it is. Then the top option could be All localities or something like that.

By the way, Historic Ithaca created a how to search HistoryForge video as part of the publicity for our collaborative SCRLC grant for adding their 1954 city of Ithaca tax assessment photo collection to HistoryForge and NYHeritage (abt 6,000 building photos) so hopefully more people locally will start using HF: https://youtu.be/MjOylnPDnNE?feature=shared

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 11:53 AM David Furber @.***> wrote:

Long-term I'd like to redo the filters so that it's like a search box and you something like: name="samuel johnson" age<40 sex=m

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[dfurber]

I made it say "Showing All" because if you had one selected, I wanted to say which one, without having to open the dropdown. I could explore other ways to indicate that, that don't also take up too much valuable real estate in the top bar.

[dfurber]

I could make it say "Localities" if you've none selected, instead of Showing all which I agree makes no sense if you don't understand what it does.

[dfurber]

And I did the above. Hopefully it makes more sense now.

[EveSnyder]

Thank you, I think that will help keep us from the trap of so many other database projects which are hard to use, like this one I just came across which just gives in and just admits that fact on the main page: "It is a research database, so it is not very user friendly, but click on any highlighted link — you never know where that may lead you!" http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/index.html

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 1:45 PM David Furber @.***> wrote:

And I did the above. Hopefully it makes more sense now.

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[dfurber]

I hope those words of warning never describe my work.

[EveSnyder]

They don’t. I’m sorry. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments about the platform over the past year especially but in the past as well which say the opposite. It’s something I worry about in general as I see other platforms that are hard to use and as I navigate some of our volunteers (thankfully not many like this lately) for whom performing some of the basic tasks needed on the internet and even on the computer is a big deal, and many others who are afraid to click on different tabs for fear they they’ll break something. I didn’t actually try to navigate that site but I appreciate their bluntness about saying-hey we have cool stuff here, play around and find out, you might like it.

Eve Snyder, PhD Historian and Project Director, HistoryForge https://tompkins.historyforge.net/ The History Center in Tompkins County http://thehistorycenter.net/ 110 North Tioga Street in the Tompkins Center for History & Culture Ithaca, NY 14850

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On Tue, Feb 6, 2024 at 8:16 AM David Furber @.***> wrote:

I hope those words of warning never describe my work.

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