So, I’ve decided to use the yahoo/flash option because it looks better, and it’s a bit easier to implement. The biggest impediment is not having geocodes for each item in the database. Here are some steps that must be taken before the map can work.
- The database needs to add a longitude and latitude field for items.
- Each item then needs their long/lat entered in.
- After that happens use the commented code below in the xml.php file:
- //$sql = “SELECT item_title, item_description, item_longlat FROM items ORDER BY item_date”;
There’s a couple of options for the field names and what they contain. This is, of course, all to be determined by the Omeka makers, and not me, but here’s my take on it anyway.
- item_longlat = would hold the longitude and latitude in format lon,lat
- item_long & item_lat = hold the long and lat separately, that might be cool for searching on items that are on the same long or lat.
- item_geocode = same as item_longlat, but a different name.
As for the Flash introduction, I still need to get the list of events that should be displayed. I also played with creating a new flash intro based on the new yahoo map of Europe, and the style of the markers. I’ll also need to think of a way to deal with markers whose information would tend to go off screen. I’ll have to make them ‘stage’ aware, or place them individually.
The last item is creating a map, that, when a country is clicked on, will return all of the items from that country. A couple of options on that are to have it return a yahoo map with markers showing items from that country, or to just return a normal list.
