Release Date

Excellent.

I am so glad I get ebooks, not gonna lie. I'm a wimp and that book in hardcover would be heavy. (I just have to be very careful not to get tears on my Kobo. Some authors make this more difficult than others, RFC. )

DMcCunney wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:and a scalable electronic version of the master map here on the site. There are a couple of problems with the map we need to see if we can figure out; some terrain features which are still there aren't there, so to speak, and I have a couple of people trying to figure out what the heck happened.

How is the map implemented?

I can’t speak for what RFC is working on, but leaftlet.js is a very popular open source mapping library that’s incredibly flexible and very simple to use for even complex maps. I’ve used it myself, and it’s very easy to work with and has a massive developer community supporting it.

There’s also the Google Maps option, utilizing the ImageMapType class, but Google’s implementation is a lot more verbose and finicky. You wind up at the same destination, but it’s a bit bumpier along the way. Examples: moon map; basic map type; The Internet Map; fantasy map (?); World of MapCraft.

Anyhow, depending on where RFC’s people are running into trouble, there are a couple different options and tools out there to help make things a bit easier. If he replies with any specifics, I’d be happy to link to some useful information I’ve stumbled across while working with mapping data in the past.

roseandheather wrote:Excellent.

I am so glad I get ebooks, not gonna lie. I'm a wimp and that book in hardcover would be heavy. (I just have to be very careful not to get tears on my Kobo. Some authors make this more difficult than others, RFC. )

I'm re-reading HFQ and finding the hardcover hard to handle as well and was thinking that if I wasn't wanting to complete the series on my shelf in hardcover, I would have gone electronic as well. Also, I dislike paying for the same thing 2x, even if it is a different format.

Louis R wrote:You seem not to have found the Infodump (TM)

Look here for the on-line map as of MT&T: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... hold/338/1

I have indeed found it. Re-read my post. I'd like something that community can update and add commentary to, and that's not it.
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Dennis

That would almost certainly be the _last_ thing Himself would want. I'd take a rather dim view of it myself, given the "community"'s propensity for creating data out of whole cloth.

In any case, you asked what software Himself uses. Well, that's it.

DMcCunney wrote:

Louis R wrote:You seem not to have found the Infodump (TM)

Look here for the on-line map as of MT&T: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... hold/338/1

I have indeed found it. Re-read my post. I'd like something that community can update and add commentary to, and that's not it.
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Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:

Louis R wrote:You seem not to have found the Infodump (TM)

Look here for the on-line map as of MT&T: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... hold/338/1

I have indeed found it. Re-read my post. I'd like something that community can update and add commentary to, and that's not it.

That would almost certainly be the _last_ thing Himself would want. I'd take a rather dim view of it myself, given the "community"'s propensity for creating data out of whole cloth.

In any case, you asked what software Himself uses. Well, that's it.

Yes. Powered by Zoomify.

The current map on the site seems to be using an older version that requires Adobe Flash. They have a new version out using HTML5 that I hope the map gets migrated to. Among other reasons, forget Flash on most mobile devices. Adobe itself deprecates Flash, and has a beta tool to help developers migrate to HTML5. Flash is still supported on desktops/laptops and gets security and bug fixes, but I'm not the only one who wants it to go away.

Viewing the map in Firefox is less than satisfactory, since there seems to be no way to adjust the size of the Zoomify window, and Firefox frequently blocks Flash because there's been Yet Another Security Vulnerability found in Flash Player and I have to install a Player update before it will permit it again.

But in any case, I wasn't suggesting that what I would like to see replace the official version. It would be a separate thing in its own sandbox that people could play in. I won't cry if it doesn't occur. It would simply be fun.
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Dennis

[That wasn't a joke when I posted about interspersing the other day: your quoting style makes it a bitch to quote you and maintain correct attribution. People have enough trouble quoting with this idiot software as it is.]

There is, or at least was, a local Zoomify viewer available. I think I stopped using it because it was decidedly squiffy in Vista, which the laptop i had at the time was running, but it may be around, and even updated.

Why people insisted on using Flash has, to be honest, always escaped me, but there are a lot of very large organisations using, and even migrating to, products based on it. It's probably not going away nearly as soon as Adobe might wish. One of the downsides of buying out the competition and saddling yourself with their customer bases

DMcCunney wrote:

Louis R wrote:That would almost certainly be the _last_ thing Himself would want. I'd take a rather dim view of it myself, given the "community"'s propensity for creating data out of whole cloth.

In any case, you asked what software Himself uses. Well, that's it.

Yes. Powered by Zoomify.

The current map on the site seems to be using an older version that requires Adobe Flash. They have a new version out using HTML5 that I hope the map gets migrated to. Among other reasons, forget Flash on most mobile devices. Adobe itself deprecates Flash, and has a beta tool to help developers migrate to HTML5. Flash is still supported on desktops/laptops and gets security and bug fixes, but I'm not the only one who wants it to go away.

Viewing the map in Firefox is less than satisfactory, since there seems to be no way to adjust the size of the Zoomify window, and Firefox frequently blocks Flash because there's been Yet Another Security Vulnerability found in Flash Player and I have to install a Player update before it will permit it again.

But in any case, I wasn't suggesting that what I would like to see replace the official version. It would be a separate thing in its own sandbox that people could play in. I won't cry if it doesn't occur. It would simply be fun.
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Dennis

I stopped messing with the horrible Zoomify once I discovered that the words 'One big file' below the map were a link that would let me download it as a Jpeg and fill my screen with it offline.

D'oh!

You know, I'd totally forgotten about that - I do have the excuse that I've mostly been looking at it on work computers where I didn't really want to download large personal files, but still...

Randomiser wrote:I stopped messing with the horrible Zoomify once I discovered that the words 'One big file' below the map were a link that would let me download it as a Jpeg and fill my screen with it offline.

Louis R wrote:Why people insisted on using Flash has, to be honest, always escaped me, but there are a lot of very large organisations using, and even migrating to, products based on it. It's probably not going away nearly as soon as Adobe might wish. One of the downsides of buying out the competition and saddling yourself with their customer bases

The single biggest reason for Flash was video. Video was encoded as Flash objects and viewed in Flash player.

Making Flash go away is probably the biggest single incentive to move to HTML5. HTML5 includes the <video> keyword that lets you embed video without Flash. You still need a codec, but the codec will be a component of the browser, and not a third-party plugin. Browser development now seems to have a base assumption that plugins are bad, and the user should be able to do everything without needing them.

Of course, you must have a codec, and that provided more fun. The defacto standard encoding now is H_264, which is proprietary and requires a license to implement a codec. YouTube had a beta test site for HTML5 video as they converted. It worked in IE and Chrome because IBM and Google paid for a license and could include the codec. It didn't work in Firefox, because Firefox is open source, and Mozilla needed to be able to include the source for the codec in the source for the browser. Google then decided to make Chrome open source and was looking at other codecs that were open source that might offer comparable performance. Cisco finally broke the logjam by paying for a license that let them offer a reference implementation of H_264 as open source, and that's what gets used.

I have a variety of sites bookmarked that use Flash for other things besides video, but they are implemented by people who know what they're doing and are well crafted.

That said, when Flash can go away I'll do the Snoopy happy dance.
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Dennis