Beta Appearance Options

There are now some "hidden" appearance options. Scroll down the controls on the top left and you'll find three new "beta" options. All of these are experimental and could change or disappear at any time.

Force Hexes

This forces hexes to always be rendered... as hexagons. This applies at the 16 and 32 pixels/parsec scale. The map usually renders hexes as squares (well, rectangles) to match the Atlas of the Imperium and route maps printed in the Travellers Digest.

World Colors

An attempt at providing more information about worlds. This currently only applies at the 64 pixels/parsec and up. The color codes are currently:

• Rich and Agricultural: gold  •
• Agricultural: green  •
• Rich: purple  •
• Industrial: gray  •
• Corrosive/insidious/etc: rust  •
• Vacuum: black  •
• Liquid water: blue  •
• Otherwise: white ○

Filled Borders

As previous discussed. It's pretty, you should try it out. This only applies when micro-scale borders are rendered - i.e. 4 pixels/parsec and up.

These features haven't been extensively tested and may not make sense in all styles. Feedback is very much appreciated.

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Small tweaks and fixes

Just fit and finish:

• The Spinward/Rimward galactic direction display indicators are now rotated to match the Imperium Map poster (tested in IE8, Chrome and Firefox)
• Double-clicking now correctly centers what you double clicked on. Previously, it was off by 15 or so pixels (half a parsec)
• The Credits display at the bottom now shows the subsector name (and index) for the targeted location..
• Some macro-scale labels were cut off too early as you zoomed in. I fixed that, but also tweaked the scale thresholds for various elements. The new thresholds are documented in the info page

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Subsector names vs. clutter

Subsector names no longer render at 64 pixels/parsec scale (that's the standard zoomed in level). The map was seeming too cluttered to me. This does mean less information will be available on sector posters, so I may revert this change. Ω

Macro Routes and Label Cleanup

I've added "macro scale" routes - the Jump-5, Jump-4, and Zhodani Core Routes, visible at low zoom levels. These aren't visible if you zoom out too far because they make the map ugly. They also disappear if you zoom in, well before the micro-scale routes, because they don't line up well. I'll try and fix that - I've already tweaked K'kree Outpost borders in Gn'hk'r/Gelath slightly.

Other changes and bug fixes:

• Polity labels now wrap correctly in PDF Posters (example)
• Added CORS note to API docs - short version: modern browsers make the JSONP hack unnecessary
• Fix glyph layout in the side-bar Legend
• Smaller names at the macro scale (e.g. J-5 Route) now show by default. This changes the map's default option value to 1015. Older permalinks won't have this set, adjust if necessary.

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Sneak Preview: Filled Borders

Sneak preview of the "filled border" functionality:

This is still only a 99% solution - there are tiny gaps when using "candy style" borders near sector boundaries, where a few pixels inside the border might not be filled. Only noticeable if you go looking, and fixing that would be extremely computationally expensive, so I probably won't bother. Other minor issues include overlapping polities such as the Vegan Autonomous District (Spinward Marches), Ral Ranta (Hinterworlds), and the sub-polities of the Julian Protectorate - the translucent backgrounds blend. Also, world names (and the worlds themselves) have a black background - I may try and fix that.

This will be controlled by an option/parameter, but I haven't hooked that up yet.

One issue is that this makes the polities without micro-scale borders - namely, the Hive Federation and Two Thousand Worlds - more glaringly incomplete. I could toss in "make this entire sector purple/green" placeholders like I did for Stiatlchepr. Opinions? Ω

Credits Links

A minor tweak I've been meaning to do for a while now: in the "credits" area at the bottom, the sector name is now a link to the LBB generator page, and a link to the PDF poster generator is added after the sector data link.

I've also started some substantial modernization work to the HTML/CSS/JavaScript behind the page. If anything broke please let me know, as I'm not being as diligent as I could be in testing on all browsers.

Completely unrelated: I've also started experimenting with shaded regions as a rendering option, but while a 95% solution was easy the 100% solution will require more thought and effort - dang hexes! This is not enabled yet. Ω

Metadata Tweaks

Some minor cleanup:

• Tweaked label positions for: Foreven, Beyond, Touchstone, Riftspan Reaches, Reaver's Deep, Dark Nebula, Ustral Quadrant
• Tweaked borders for: Reaver's Deep, Daibei, Dark Nebula
• Tweaked polity names for: Reaver's Deep (per Sector Sourcebook)
• Added travel zones to Reaver's Deep (per Sector Sourcebook)
• Made the sector.htm demo page show polity names on the "centerfold" map

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