View Demo»
To Do List
- Add a search engine to the sidebar, so that if the user types the building name, that building will show up in the map
- Create two custom map, one is the original ryerson map and another as hybrid of the original ryerson map and the google map
- Show relevant info in the map such as: parking lot, restaurants or snack store etc.
- Get a proper category list for each buildings. For example, whether the Book Store should be under information buiildings or relevant or other category.
- If the user is viewing the map in less than 10/12(untill we see the whole toronto area), show a marker on the map.
- If the user is viewing from 10/12 to 14 level zoom, then draw a transparent colored rectangle as an overlay over the campus area
- When the user moves to zoom lever 15+, automatically switch to custom map type. If it's 15-, then switch to google map type.
- In the info window, show a Form for getting driving direction and redirect this info to google map website where the driving direction will be displayed.
- In Classroom Building sidebar, make a tab for offered programs or departments, which will list those departments and load the associated buildings from another xml file.
Journal
Friday, August 18, 2006 - Start Version 2
The first version of this project required a lot of work and I never even thought that I would actually continue working on it. When I first published my site, I was so inspired by my friends and their comments that I decided to keep working on it and make it as good as possible. Before I add any new feature, the first thing that I will need to do is, fix the bugs from version 1 and complete the task list that weren't done yet. Obviously, I completely missed the new Business building in the map, which has to be added to the map. Also, the custome map should be overlayed on top of the google map, so that the user don't see any blackwhole outside of the campus area.
Monday, August 21, 2006 - Create Search Engine
Right now, I'll be working on the search engine for the map. No, this will not search for driving direction. This one will simply list the buildings in the search result area, where the user can click on the link to see the building on the map. It will look much like the classroom buildings area. I might try to make the search result look like the Official Google Map search result, but that's later. Anyways... since the code of the buildings is only 3 letters, I will first search the xml file for the building codes.
Time: 5 hours
Didn't have any major problem making this search engine. I thought it would take longer. It's working perfectly. Currently, it can only search for the building code name and the keywords of the buildings. I discarded any common words the user might try, for example: "building" , "ryerson" etc. I also made the search result a little user friendly, which is, if any result is found, user's input will be bolded, just like Google's search result. However, there is one problem that I still couldn't solve. The problem is, when the webpage first loaded, I need to click on the search button twice to get the search result. I think it's xml file loading problem. Before I do any search in the xml file, I checked to see if the xml file is loaded or not. If it is not, then I load the xml and then continue with search engine. However, since the xml is being loaded through AJAX, I need to wait until the files are loaded. I tried a little while loop but that didn't work out. I will try to solve it later.
It would be nice if I could also search the html contents of the tabs so that if the user types anything other than the building name or code, it can search the other contents of that building, for example: offices, departments located inside that building. I guess I'll leave that for version 3
