Image Markup and Presentation

The IMaP administration program is showing signs of strain when the number of maps in a project gets large. The viHistory maps are becoming a problem; there are already over 30 maps, and the 1903 Fire Insurance maps will add about 100 more. Managing this many maps with the current methods is awkward. Giving the user access to them in the IMaP Viewer (via the Maps menu) is also problematic; the menu either gets very long or has many submenus. The only way to manage the glut of maps is to break them up into different projects, which makes finding a map to view harder. Some elements of both the administration program and the viewer will need to change to deal with this:

• In the administration program, selecting maps from a SELECT list is awkward. Also, these lists do not allow for a hierarchical arrangement of maps. The selects and other lists should be replaced with tree strutures.
• There needs to be a way to create the map definitions for multiple maps all sharing the same basic parameters, but with different names, titles and raster images. The current template feature does not do this effectively.
• The Data directory, used to hold the raster image and shape files, should allow for subfolders to match the hierarchical structure of the project's maps. Right now all files are in one folder, which makes them difficult to manage.
• Something needs to be done with the Maps menu in the viewer. With more than a few maps it gets too complex. Perhaps another level is needed, so that multiple projects each containing a reasonable number of maps can be shown on the menu.