GUI

Here I will try to collect all the ideas and decisions made regarding the GUI.
​Prototype

The (probably deprecated) prototype for creating views is ​here! The links/buttons you have to click in order to proceed through the full demonstration (as it is all fake functionality) is the following (instructions in brackets do not need to be followed in this dummy, but would have been done if the functionality were real):

"+", (select song_yinxing), "use this table", (check place_pinyin, date, gis_id), "use these columns", "gis_id", "insert_data", (select gis_locations), "use this table", (check the two coordinate columns), "use these columns", finish.

Concepts

First the user has to enter the working environment through the public website and login page/box.

The working environment consists of workspaces, which are composed of blocks.

All interaction with the mapping and database system works through these basic concepts.
At every instant, there should be tooltip information explaining the functionalities or giving a hint what next steps the user could take to continue with a workflow, so they don't feel left alone.

Technology

The GUI is implemented using ​jQuery (v1.4), and to this point, the following plugins are also used: ​ClickMenu, ​datatables, ​liveQuery, ​tooltip.

The Icons were taken from ​iconarchive.com.

Structure

The code produced until now is structured as follows:

• there are 2 templates for the home-workspace and normal workspace; these both have a "slot" (<div id="moduleslot">) where one block is preloaded (the home/workspace-block)
• every block has a template (that uses the "blocks/template"-Page Tempalte as a basis) and it's own css and js file which are included/loaded in the workspace templates and which contain code that is only needed in those blocks
• the basic block behavior is implemented in "lib/blocks.js"
• all the jquery libraries needed exist as files in the folde "lib"

Known Issues

• the ClickMenu? is somewhat difficult to handle; I haven't found out yet how to access onClick events from it
• the parameters in the addBlock method in blocks.js and the way how blocks are addressen by jquery, are pretty cumbersome and should be redone properly

Additional Information

The editor that I use for editing the Page Templates and JavaScript files is emacs.

As long as the FTP server is enabled on the zope server, the files inside zope can be accessed with emacs with the "Find file"-command (Ctrl-x Ctrl-f), and then entering /ftp:USER@chinagis.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de#8021:/PATH/TO/FILE. Confirming this (by pressing return) will ask for the password for USER and then open the file (or directory).

New Welcome Site

Herzlich Willkommen bei China GIS!

Diese Website soll Ihnen eine Recherche-Oberfläche bieten für die geografische Darstellung historischer Orte aus der Literatur. (Formulierung des letzten Meetings: „... Recherche-Plattform für eine historische Analyse mit geografischem Orientierungssystem“) ? Als Beta-Version können Sie sie ab Jahresbeginn 2011 testen und bewerten.

Die unten aufgeführte Grafik zeigt, welche Felder zum Zeitpunkt der Freistellung der Testversion aktiv beziehungsweise inaktiv sind. Sie können sich sowohl vorgefertigte Karten, zum Beispiel mit der Reiseroute des 宋应星 (Song Yingxing) anzeigen lassen, als auch selbst neue Karten mit den von Ihnen gewünschten Komponenten erstellen und speichern. Wir können jedoch nicht den Schutz der von Ihnen hinzugefügten Karten gewährleisten; sie sind von jedem einsehbar und können verändert und gelöscht werden.

Besuchen Sie erstmals China GIS?

• Lesen Sie die Anleitung. Sie gibt Ihnen genauere Informationen (zur Entwicklung und) zum Umgang mit dem geografischen Orientierungssystem.
• Erstellen Sie Ihr persönliches Login.

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