INQUA Sub-Commission on Data-Handling Methods

Newsletter 14: July 1996

MapPad II: The Sequel

John Keltner
NOAA Paleoclimatology Program
325 Broadway E/GCx3
Boulder, Colorado 80303
E-mail: jkeltner@ngdc.noaa.gov

The January 1995 INQUA Newsletter on Data Handling Methods included an article introducing MapPad to an unsuspecting world. In the year and a half since then the producers, writers, and directors have conferred occasionally to discuss whether there was any mileage left in that original idea. Could they possibly get away with, that is to say, was the public clamoring for more? Would their sequel be a bust, or would they finally hit the big time?

The Original

In case you missed the original, a brief reprise is in order. MapPad is a Microsoft Windows (3.1, 95, or NT) program that allows you to put your text and graphics on the map. More precisely, it allows you to place your sites on the map by giving them a name and a latitude/longitude pair.

In addition to showing where your sites are geographically, you can add text and references to graphics that can be displayed by subsequently clicking the site on the map (Figure 1).

Figure 1
Figure 1. MapPad main notepad windows.
You can zoom in on a region of the map (see Figures 2 and 3) by clicking and dragging the mouse. When you release the mouse button the map zooms to display the region you outlined. Buttons along the bottom of the map restore it to the previous zoomed image or to the initial, unzoomed map.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Adding a new site from the File menu. The map has been zoomed in on Scotland.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Main window and Options menu.
From MapPad's main window you can create new data files (for your sites and the information associated with them), or you can open existing ones that you created or that were sent to you by a colleague or that you downloaded from a source like the INQUA File Boutique (http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~maher/inqua.html). You can also add new sites to the map (Figure 2), modify existing sites (their name, latitude, longitude, or with version 2.0, some additional properties), or even delete them. Lastly, you can choose to print the maps as currently displayed in the map frame. You can print the map directly to your printer, or to a file. Printing to a file allows you to bring the map into a graphics package such as Corel Draw where you could, for example, add titles or labels for individual sites.

MapPad was designed for your data. To that end a number of maps are available. Additional maps can be made to order (more about maps below). You can associate textual information with your sites by typing directly into the notepad window for each site (Figure 1), or since MapPad data files are just simple text files you can create them with your word processor or database manager or other software. (If you create your own data files then there are a few rules you must follow. These are documented in the online help that comes with MapPad.) Searching, Cut-Copy-Paste are all available from within a site's notepad window.

A Sequel is Born

So what has been added to MapPad to entice you out onto the information superhighway to download this latest incarnation? How about vastly improved maps? Ok, they are still just coastlines, islands, lakes, rivers, and political boundaries, but the level of detail, especially for small regional maps is now much, much greater (only continental-scale maps were available for version 1.x). Suffice it to say, if you work or live on a sizable island off the west coast of Scotland, that island now shows up on the map (see Figure 3).

Another new feature are map symbols. Version 1.x displayed all sites as red squares on the map. With version 2.0 you can choose from among several symbols (hollow or filled squares, hollow or filled circles, hollow triangle, cross) and one of seven different colors. These different symbols can now represent different categories of sites (in Figures 1-3 the solid circles represent lacustrine and the hollow triangles represent terrestrial sites).

With version 2.0 you can also select the point on which the printed map is centered. In version 1.x the printed map was always centered on the center of the map as currently displayed in the map frame. This produced undesirable results for polar maps, so now you can select the centering point.

Several new options have been added to the main window's Options menu (Figure 3). The size of the symbols as displayed or printed can be made larger or smaller. You can choose to display a long or a short caption on the descriptor button (the button above the map that displays the site's descriptor when you click a site on the map). The long caption includes the symbol definition for the site. If your data file uses symbols, then you can include a legend on the displayed or printed map.

Now Playing

So where can you find MapPad II? It is not sold in any store. You will have get onto the Internet and cruise down (up?) to one of the World Wide Web or FTP sites MapPadded below (Figure 4). To make the size of the distribution file smaller, only one map is distributed with the installation package. This is a map of North America, used by the sample data file. You can download individual maps for the areas you need from the same WWW or FTP sites.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Note pad window showing sources for MapPad and WDC-A pollen data.
To install MapPad you should download the latest self-extracting executable of the setup program. Extract the contents of this file into a temporary directory by executing it from the MS-DOS prompt or from File Manager. Then run the Setup program (setup.exe) to compete installation. Be sure to download any additional maps you need. Each map has also been compressed into a self-extracting executable file. Execute each one to extract the enclosed map file.

Roll the Credits

MapPad was conceived and produced by Lou Maher. John Keltner was responsible for the writing and directing, and the sometimes shaky camera work. Most of the changes incorporated into version 2.0 were suggested by users. All these suggestions are greatly appreciated.
The final version of MapPad II will also be available from the INQUA File Boutique, Ed
Copyright © 1996 John Keltner
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