How to Use the General Purpose Viewer
The General Purpose Viewer (GPV) is a mapping web site that provides a consistent set of mapping functions across a variety of applications. This document describes these mapping functions. For specific information regarding the configuration, content and use of the GPV for a particular application, please contact the administrator of this web site.
Major Components of the General Purpose Viewer
The interface for the GPV is divided into several panels controlled by tabs. Depending on how your application has been configured, some of these panels may not be available.
Map Panel - A GPV application will always have a map panel. This contains the map itself and the basic controls needed to manage it. At the top left of this panel are one or more map tabs. Clicking on a map tab will change the map to show different thematic layers. At the top right of this panel are three buttons that control the size of the interface. Choose the size that best suits your screen resolution. When the viewer is busy retrieving a new map or other data, an animated clock icon will appear temporarily toward the upper-left of the map.
Selection Panels - Some applications provide two panels that let you select features (mapped objects) on the map and retrieve information about them. The top panel lets you choose one or two map layers from which you can select features and a filter for limiting the data shown. It also has a grid for displaying the data. The bottom panel has one or more tabs and shows detailed data for one of the objects highlighted on the map and in the grid.
Legend Panel - Some applications provide a panel which displays the legend for the current map.
Location Panel - Some applications provide a panel with an overview map of your area of interest. The red box shows the current location of the main map. You can move and resize this box to change the extent of the main map. The empty space on this panel is reserved for future capabilities.
Markup Panel - Some applications provide a panel for creating and managing markups on the map. You can draw groups of points, lines, polygons and text which are saved in a database and can be retrieved for viewing by others.
The Selection Panels, Legend Panel and Markup Panel occupy the same space on the interface. When more than one are available in an application, you can use tabs at the top to switch between them.
Navigating Around the Map
Zoom Out/In - Click on one of the small buttons to quickly zoom in or out on the center of the map. Each button represent a zoom factor of two.
Scale 1" = [feet]' - Shows the current scale of the map. You can enter a different scale here to zoom the map in and out.
Pan North/East/South/West - Click on one of the arrow buttons around the edge of the map to pan the map in that direction.
External Map Viewers - The pulldown list below the map lets you launch other web-based map viewers centered and zoomed to the same location as the current map. Select the map viewer and click Go to pop it up in a new browser window.
Getting Information
Help - Displays the help for the General Purpose Viewer in a pop-up window.
Communicating with Others
Selecting Features on the Map
If the Selection Panels are available in your GPV application, you can pick features on the map from certain layers and display information about them. Depending on how your GPV is configured and linked to other web applications, you may be brought automatically to a set of selected features when the GPV comes up - the functions on the Selection Panels let you change this selected set.
The top Selection Panel lets you specify how you would like to pick features on the map. This is done by setting the five pulldown lists, shown below, so that together they form a readable sentence which describes how the Select Features tool to the left will function. See the picture under Selection Panels (above) for an example.
Action - Lets you specify what the Select Features tool to the left will do when you click on the map. Three types of action are supported:
Target - Lets you choose the target layer. Data for features picked from this layer will be shown in the data grid below. Target features will highlight with the same color as the background of this pulldown list (unless they have been filtered, in which case they will appear gray).
Proximity - When Action is set to "Find all", this lets you specify the distance around features in the selection layer to search for features in the target layer. If set to zero, target features will only be found inside or directly adjacent to the selection features.
Selection - Lets you choose the selection layer. Features picked from this layer will be used to search for features in the target layer. Selection features will highlight with the same color as the background of this pulldown list.
Filter - Applies a filter to the set of target features you picked on the map. Data for features that fulfill the criteria of the filter will be displayed in the grid below this control.
Using Selected Features
If the Selection Panels are available in your GPV application and you have picked some target features on the map, you can use the capabilities below to show data about those features.
Data Grid - This displays data about the selected target features that have passed the filter criteria. The columns of data shown will vary with the target layer and the selected filter. Clicking on a row in this grid will highlight that row, highlight the corresponding feature on the map, and bring up detailed data in the bottom panel. The total number of rows in the grid is displayed at the lower left of the grid.
To Mailing Labels - When enabled, this lets you generate mailing labels for the selected target features. A window will popup which let's you select the label format, printing direction and font characteristics. The labels are delivered as a PDF file which can be printed or saved to disk. It is likely that only certain layers (such as parcels or buildings) will be enabled for mailing labels in your application.
To Spreadsheet - This exports the data for the selected target features currently shown in the data grid to a comma-separated value (CSV) file. Depending on your computer and browser configuration, this may launch a program, such as Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc, for viewing the CSV file as a spreadsheet. Otherwise you will be prompted to save the file to disk.
Detailed Data - The bottom Selection Panel shows detailed data from the feature highlighted in the data grid. Depending on your application, one or more tabs will be provided for different types of data. Some of the data may be displayed as links to other pages which will popup in another window. It is also possible to have small images within the listed data. These may also act as links to other pages or documents.
Creating and Managing Map Markup
If the Markup Panel is available in your GPV application, you can draw shapes and text (markup) on the map for others to see. Every user has the ability to edit and delete the markup created by other users. Given the wide-open nature of this environment, your organization may set guidelines for the proper treatment of markup. Please contact your administrator for details.
The markup capabilities are only available in Internet Explorer.
Your Name - You must provide a name or identifier for yourself to create markup. This name will appear in the grid below for all markup that you create.
Category - Markup is placed in categories for ease of management. Select an appropriate category from this list before creating new markup. Upon selecting a category the grid will update to show all available markup groups in that category.
Markup Group - Shapes and text that you create are stored in named groups. The following functions let you manage these markup groups.
Markup Grid - This displays all of the available markup groups in the selected category. Clicking on a row in this grid will zoom the map to the extent of that markup group, draw the markup, and open the group for editing.
Other Capabilities
Change the Size of the GPV - When you run the GPV for the first time, it will automatically set itself to one of three sizes depending on the resolution of your screen. You can change the size of the GPV by clicking on one of the Size buttons. The GPV will return to that size when you start it the next time.
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