The City of Nanaimo is launching our new MapGuide Open Source / Fusion based map in beta. I’d love to see some feedback from testers, and to get help generating some real-world usage patterns. You can only do so much with canned load tests.
If you’ve got a few minutes to play with it, please join us here:
NanaimoMap Beta
It’s in beta because of the issues that will likely be shaken out by more widespread use, and because we have not yet built out the layers and search functionality required to match our current MapGuide 6.5 ActiveX-based mapping portal CityMap. This will be completed before the end of the year.
Thanks!
-J
P.S. This application was developed by DM Solutions Group. We’re running Fusion 1.1 with the latest test build (r4114) of MapGuide. We wouldn’t have been able to launch–even in beta–without some last minute fixes by Trevor Wekel of OTX Systems and Haris Kurtagic of SL King. From a personal perspective, these guys are both amazing to work with, moderately priced for the value they offer, and are great resources if you’re stuck with a problem in MapGuide core that you can’t fix on your own. As always, the opinions offered on this blog are my own, not necessarily those of my employer.
It certainly is fast – the property links are great. Where are the bike routes ;-)
Nanaimo is so ultimately bike-friendly that you don’t need bike routes, just use a line-of-sight calculation :)
Seriously, bike routes and about a hundred other layers are slated for addition before we come out of beta.
Well done Jason.
It’s the most slick and responsive MapGuide live demo I’ve seen. (All this time I thought that other MapGuide demo sites were slow because I was viewing them from the other side of the world.) This is the kind of site I’d like to achieve for my local government clients in Australia.
I like the simple layout and that you’ve separated the Basic and Advanced functions.
If you’re looking for feedback, I’d argue that basic users may not be aware to use the mouse wheel to zoom. They might need some clue to use the mouse wheel, or have immediate access to the zoom buttons.
Another way to help basic users feel at home could be to collapse the layer groups folders by default. But I realise you’ve got to weight this up with showing users what layers are available and what the colours represent.
Some of the pop-up tool tips for the buttons and menus say ‘Click to..’ and others don’t. You might not need them to say ‘Click to’. (Jeez, I struggling for things to pick on now :-).
Overall, I think it’s streets ahead of any public GIS interface I’ve seen, and it’s actually a pleasure to use.
All the best for your beta and a successful launch at the end of the year.
Cheers,
Simon
Thanks for the feedback and good wishes Simon. I guess that it’s a good sign that you’re struggling :) I’ll look into the other stuff for sure.
great map, same like google earth.. maybe can improved from it size
Wow that map viewer is impressive!
Comments:
Would be nice if the info tab was a bit more descriptive about what it does. Example: When on the default theme unless you click on a park it does nothing at the full extent. When on the zoning theme it does nothing at all. It only works on the legal theme.
I like the ability to switch from basic to advanced view but there still is no full extent button, guess I’m old school but I like to have one.
To make fake links for JS, it is annoying to use “#”, you can use javascript void(0) instead so you don’t have the hash in the URL.
I’m like Simon, it is becoming difficult to find anything wrong with it, great job!
Glen