HCMC Blogs

Did more work on util functions for the process but realized that the primary requirement for development is to have more flexible maps that can combine different GeoJSON files together, so I've diverted into some dev work on BreezeMap.

I've created the core set of files required to do the processing, and I've started writing some of the simpler functions we'll need. I have a function test module which I'll use to develop the function library; it's going to be essential to develop and test all the functions individually before we start chaining them together to create the monstrous output files, at which point it will be hard to see the wood for the trees. Found a lot of instances of substantial overlap (14%+) between lots which are supposed to be contiguous, so our threshold will have to be pretty high.

I've finished a fairly straightforward interface that enables you to turn on and off highlighting for all the categories and subcategories in a text. It's pretty flexible and extensible, although at the moment the highlight colours for the base categories are hard-coded; making something self-adapting would actually make reconciliation between two encodings harder, because they'd end up with different highlighting. As it is, the base categories pretty much exhaust the easily-distinguished highlight colours. Waiting to see if EC can use this as it is, or whether she needs more features.

Got some more detail in place today, and I've started a new folder in the trunk called propertyStats, and a build file which will be the basis for the process. I'll start by defining resources, then writing some functions (pinching a bit from previous work) in XSLT. This codebase will be cleaner and better-documented than previous work because JSR would like to publish it in association with the book.

Pushing forward with database updates for new server.

So far I've updated both VPN dbs and all four active Landscapes dbs to the latest codebase, meaning that they will run on both PHP 5.6 and PHP 7. For VPN and the Powell St db, I've put the following stuff in .htaccess files to ensure that we're actually running on the new server and taking advantage of PHP 7, because the speed payoff is significant:

setEnv UVPHP_VERSION 70

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond     %{HTTP_HOST} ^hcmc\.uvic\.ca$ [NC]
RewriteRule     (.*)  https://webserver2.hcmc.uvic.ca%{REQUEST_URI}

Once the new server takes over from the old, we'll have to remove the redirects. I have one more database to port, the jsrDocs one.

Met with JSR and worked on the plan for the next round of statistical work. I now have a working plan which will involve making use of the overlap data generated during the summer to determine the sequence of titles/lots rather than using the rather flaky sequences put together from title data. I've already processed the CSV overlap data into expanded FODS files, then merged it all into a very simple XML file that can be used in the transformations as required.

MM has joined the team and will start tomorrow. I also fixed some CSS issues (adding handling for nested quotes), and updated the documentation.

Late duty.