Tuesday, November 20, 2007

When is "none" really something?

GTViewer provides many ways to report on geospatial information as well as view it. One seldom used but powerful method works within the Query subsystem. If you define a query with the key word "none" enclosed in less-than-greater-than brackets for the PromptText parameter, then the user is not presented with the related attribute for the PromptColumn parameter to fill out when doing a query, but the values of that attribute are returned in the query results. What a sentence!?! Let me give an example. Here is a snippet of a query definition that uses (pipe) instead of the pipe symbol and "none" instead of the word none enclosed in less-than-greater-than brackets.

PromptText(pipe)Substation Name
PromptColumn(pipe)SUB_NAME_CODE
PromptHeading(pipe)Substation Name
PromptText(pipe)"none"
PromptColumn(pipe)FEEDER_NUM
PromptHeading(pipe)Feeder Number

This definition produces the following behavior: The user is presented only with the choice of submitting a Substation Name. But when the results come back on the query results form, the Feeder Number is listed along with the Substation Name.

Then the user can select the COPY button on the query results menu and paste the results into Word, Excel, or an email message as a report.

I used this technique recently to produce a report for a client of all the switches normally set to OPEN. I'm sure the resourceful readers of the GTViewer Blog will come up with more useful reports.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Feature Tooltips in GTViewer and GTVx

A new feature called Feature Tooltips has been added to GTViewer 7.0.x.17 and GTVx 7.0.x.9. A Feature Tooltip will automatically display when the user hovers the mouse cursor over a feature and will display a subset of the feature’s tabular information.

The Feature Tooltip must configured for each feature you want to support. This configuration is done in the .GTM file by adding a list of features and what attributes will be displayed for each feature. Any of the attributes from a feature’s associated tabular records are available for the tooltip.

The Feature Tooltip does not provide any information that cannot be displayed with the Attribute Info mode or by right clicking the mouse on a feature; however, it does provide another way to quickly provide key information for a feature with minimal user interaction.

Examples:

The following screenshot display a Feature Tooltip on a Pole feature:



The following screenshot show the Phase for a Primary Conductor. Note that only the phase value is display with no heading or attribute label.

GTVx version 7.0.x.9 is Available



Version 7.0.x.9 of GTVx is available.

-----------------------
07.00.00.09 - 11/16/07
-----------------------

- NEW - NEW Methods:

boolean AddFeatureTooltipItem(BSTR itemString);

boolean ResetFeatureTooltips();

- NEW - Feature Tooltip support added.

- NEW - Options/Settings has Feature Tooltip added.

- NEW - GetDataProperty and SetDataProperty now support "FeatureTooltips" and "FeatureToolTipMaximumThreshold".

- CHG - Selecting filled Shapes with now work for any point in the shape instead of just the border.




GTViewer version 7.0.x.17 is Available



Version 7.0.x.17 of GTViewer is available.

-----------------------
07.00.00.17 - 11/16/07
-----------------------

- NEW - Feature Tooltip support added.

- NEW - Options/Settings has Feature Tooltip added.

- NEW - GetDataProperty and SetDataProperty now support "FeatureTooltips" and "FeatureToolTipMaximumThreshold".

- CHG - Selecting filled Shapes with now work for any point in the shape instead of just the border.


Thursday, November 08, 2007

GTV .NET Control version 7.0.0.27 is Available



Version 7.0.x.27 of the GTViewer .NET Control is available.

------------
07.00.00.27 - 11/08/07
------------

- NEW - New Methods:

bool ClearStyleMap( int categoryId )

- FIX - #151 - GetFeatureInfo was not populating the OriginX and OriginY properties for symbol elements.

- FIX - #152 - GetFeatureInfo would returned a negative value for symbolId if greater than 127.

- FIX - #153 - GetFeatureRange would fail on groups with Data Only elements (Type 6) and other non-displayable elements.

- NEW - #154 - ClearStyleMap method has been added to allow all style mappings in the session category to be cleared.

- NEW - #155 - GetFeatureInfo will not populate element ranges if requested.

- FIX - #156 - If a device's GPS did not populate the time value for a Coordinate fix,
the coordinate would not be converted from lat/long and the GPS would
be stopped.

- FIX - #157 - ExtendedInfo property not property set for GetFeatureInfo.

PGTV .NET Control version 7.0.0.21 is Available



Version 7.0.x.21 of the PGTV Control is available.

------------
07.00.00.21 - 11/08/07
------------

- NEW - New Methods:

bool ClearStyleMap( int categoryId )

- FIX - #151 - GetFeatureInfo was not populating the OriginX and OriginY properties for symbol elements.

- FIX - #152 - GetFeatureInfo would returned a negative value for symbolId if greater than 127.

- FIX - #153 - GetFeatureRange would fail on groups with Data Only elements (Type 6) and other non-displayable elements.

- NEW - #154 - ClearStyleMap method has been added to allow all style mappings in the session category to be cleared.

- NEW - #155 - GetFeatureInfo will not populate element ranges if requested.

- FIX - #156 - If a device's GPS did not populate the time value for a Coordinate fix, the coordinate would not be converted from lat/long and the GPS would be stopped.

- FIX - #157 - ExtendedInfo property not property set for GetFeatureInfo.