My Neighborhood / Lifestyle Meteorology

This method of searching will retrieve all places meeting a set of criteria and plot their locations on a map of Ontario. All data in the database can be examined to determine if a place should be displayed. This type of search is started by using the

"Look for many places"

The search presents groups of related parameters and assists the user in examining the database to see what effect each individual parameter has on the results of the search.

The first screen seen will look like the following:

The frame at the top of the screen always contains a menu to go to specific places in the Integrated Mapping Assessment Project (IMAP) website. IMAP is the source for the maps used in this program.

The column on the left contains buttons to control the search. The top 2 yellow buttons navigate to the Home page and the Single place search, while the next 3 blue buttons manipulate the active profile and display the contents of the database. The green button in the top group controls the display of little "Help" icons near objects on the screen. When selected, a "popup" page will be shown with help relating to the function and context of the selected item. Once read by the user, these popups can then be closed.

The lower part of the left column is take up by a series of buttons identifing the main "classes" of data in the database (Climate, Agriculture, Demographics, etc.) and a single pale yellow button (indicated by the black arrow) which controls the display of the detailed contents of the classes. When this button is selected, the list of buttons is expanded to reveal buttons for the individual components of the class.

The next screen dump shows a portion of the detail display as might be seen upon scrolling down to the "Air Quality" section:

The arrow next to the "Air Quality" button indicates the user has selected this button in order to show selectors for the items in this class: Lead, Ozone and Acid Rain.

The selectors appear in the largest portion of the screen, to the right of the collection of class buttons. Depending on the button selected, all the selectors for the entire class, or a single selector for an individual component will be shown.

A selector for a component contains 4 items that can be controlled by the user, indicated by black arrows on the image. The leftmost is a checkbox with which the user may indicate that the particular component is to be used in the search. The default state is that the component is ignored. When clicked, the box will change state and will indicate (with an "X", a check mark or other means, depending upon the browser) that it is selected. The next item the user can control is a pair of "Radio" buttons indicating whether the used wants to use a "Low, Medium, High" type selector or specify the actual values of parameters for the search. The remaining two items are the mechanism to select the range of data to appear in the final result. Depending on the radio button setting, either the popup scrolling list to select "None", "Low", "Medium", "High", or "Extreme", or the text box below it can be used. The first pair selects the lower limit and the second, the upper limit for the data. The remaining items in the selector are descriptive information about the parameter.

At the bottom of the selector are 3 buttons which submit the selections. They are labelled

"Map sites for these Parameters",
"Add these selections to Active Profile" and
"Map sites for all Parameters in Active Profile".

The first button will display only the data selected from the current screen without considering other selections the user might have made previously. The second button will add the contents of the selector(s) to the Active Profile. Typically a user would operate one selector, plotting the results individually, and using the browser's back button to return to the selector to modify the valies. When satisfied, the user would add the parameter to the Active profile, and then proceed to investigate others, adding them as the search progressed. Maps are produced regardless of the type of submission: a sample is shown using data from the Ozone selector under Air Quality.

Selections made on the displayed maps will show more detail until no further enlargement is available or until only one point is selected.

As each map is generated, the relationship among the parameters entering into the search are displayed on the output page. This will assist the user in recalling what data had been specified.

Once values for parameters have been determined, the parameter setting can be added to the "Active Profile", which is a collection of these settings maintained for each individual user on the system. This Active Profile will be retained for two days for the user, and then will be deleted.

If users wish to retain copies of their Active Profiles, they may do so by assigning a user name and password to their sessions, and providing a name for the profile to be saved, together with an optional description. These profiles will be retained by the system indefinitely, and may be retrieved into the Active Profile on demand.