Another mapping program

[hpaulsen]

I was just informed of a bug that unfortunately I had never tested properly for before. I'm not sure how long it had been there, but it's fixed now. So as a clarification, you should only have to create one project for each ward/stake forever. You can then import membership files on top of this project, and it will remember all previously placed addresses and drawn regions so you don't have to re-map/re-draw them.

Here's the general procedure:
First, create a ward/stake project:

• Create a new project for the ward/stake (only needs to be done once).
• Click "Import Now" from Alerts window to import membership info.
• Map and/or place addresses (various methods)

Then, each time new membership info is available,

• Click on "Import csv" at the top of the main window to import the updated info.
• The date of the current and all previous snapshots is shown in a drop-down menu at the top. Change back and forth at will.

Unfortunately, until I add the option of deleting snapshots, the file size will continue getting larger. I plan to add the delete option soon.

Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback (mostly off-list)!

-Hyrum

[Ivan-p40]

Our stake is interested in setting up and maintaining geocodes. However, this was a much larger project than I anticipated. Your software is very promising!! I downloaded over 1800 households just fine. All the red dots came up and I could filter between categories. Neat!

Then I started playing with the region drawing - put a couple of them in. Now my red dots are all gone. I can't figure out how to get them back??? I'm also noticing that the program might run slow because of the large numbers?? but I'm not sure. I'm going to try using just a ward csv to see if there's much difference in handling characteristics.

How do I get my red dots back??

[hpaulsen]

Thanks! You found another bug! I made some huge code changes, and obviously didn't sufficiently alpha test. I'll try to have a new version out very soon to address this. Meanwhile, you can get the red dots back by saving your changes (including the regions, if you like), then quitting the program entirely and restarting it. When it reloads the file, you should see both your regions and your red dots.

Thanks again!
Hyrum

[hpaulsen]

Ok, a new version is up! This latest problem should be fixed. (Sorry. That's two versions in one day!)

Note: the program will automatically check for updates when you start it up.

-Hyrum

[Ivan-p40]

Ok, a new version is up! This latest problem should be fixed. (Sorry. That's two versions in one day!)

Note: the program will automatically check for updates when you start it up.

-Hyrum

Thanks for the fast update!! Your work is certainly appreciated!! I am still playing with this.....looks promising.

[mikepoli]

Great application. I'm not very techy and I haven't managed to get the Home Teaching/Visiting Teaching sections working. Do you have a FAQ or tutorial?

Thanks,
Mike Polizzotto

[hpaulsen]

Not yet, sorry. In order to get the ht/vt working, you need to have the files HomeTeaching.csv and VisitingTeaching.csv from MLS, with the same creation date & time as a Membership.csv file.

What you get is the ability to use certain filters, like home teachers or people without home teachers; and it will show families taught in the details window. Oh - and it will show a bunch of lines when you click on someone in the list if the address has home/visiting teachers/teachees.

-Hyrum

[Ivan-p40]

Hyrum, this program shows a lot of promise. Thank you much for your efforts here. I had a long discussion yesterday trying to resolve how we might approach the geocoding project for our stake - your program will help out tremendously. I offer the following as feedback and suggestions (based on my experience so far) --

1. The program does seem to require a lot of RAM. It bogged down unacceptably slow on the church computer (2.4Ghz, 512 RAM) - just couldn't handle it. I had loaded in 1800 households for the stake. I might assume that the ward levels may be much more manageable. I ended up running the program on my laptop and it worked fairly well. If one is looking at doing any kind of change of ward boundaries, the entire stake dataset would be required.
2. The red dots can be moved accidentally too easily. Can these be locked down somehow? I exercised caution and still managed to move a few unintentionally. Maybe an on/off button to allow editing of locations?
3. The ability to print reports would be nice. The alerts and warnings lists. A summary report, similar to that in MLS, for a proposed region. And a listing of households with their assigned geocodes to enable manual entry of geocodes into MLS.
4. The map print is of very limited use, as we are spread over a huge area. I'm not sure I have a solution to this???

Again, great program, thanks for your efforts.

Ivan

[marianomarini]

It's possible to translate (es.: Italian) ?

[hpaulsen]

Thanks for the feedback.

1. The program does seem to require a lot of RAM.

Unfortunately, I believe that much of the RAM is used by google's map component. I hope to get around it by consolidating close addresses on wide zooms, but this will require a lot of coding and won't be done soon.

If one is looking at doing any kind of change of ward boundaries, the entire stake dataset would be required.
[/LIST]

Actually, with the way that I intended the program to be used, the wards would make sure their GEO codes are accurate, and then the stake would be able to use MLS directly.

1. The red dots can be moved accidentally too easily.

Ok, I'll work on this.

The ability to print reports would be nice.

What kinds of reports?

The alerts and warnings lists.

On my to-do list. Meanwhile, you should be able to highlight, copy, and paste each alert's list (from the "List" button) into any word processor and print it from there.

A summary report, similar to that in MLS, for a proposed region.

If the information were up-to-date in MLS, then you could just use MLS. Is there a particular advantage to having it here? I don't want to duplicate MLS functionality.

And a listing of households with their assigned geocodes to enable manual entry of geocodes into MLS.

This is sort of available. If you draw regions and assign them to GEO codes, then the Alerts window will have a list of addresses that are assigned to the wrong GEO code. This makes it very fast to find the addresses that need updating. Again, you'd have to copy and paste the list into a word processing program.

The map print is of very limited use, as we are spread over a huge area. I'm not sure I have a solution to this???

I fully agree. I have had a few ideas on this, but none that are really good. One possibility is, once GEO codes are up-to-date in MLS, filter by individual GEO codes and then zoom to addresses and print each GEO code separately.

Thanks again for the feedback! Keep it coming!