2013-03-30

Labels, Retina, and Theta Borealis

Some minor but shiny stuff:
  • Display updates and animations now use requestAnimationFrame if supported, and I used Chrome's developer tools to look for hot spots and removed some inadvertent forced layouts in loops, which should mean lower CPU load and "reduced jank" when panning the map.
    • Thanks to 77topaz for pointing out that I'd broken the map in older versions of IE. A quick fix to my requestAnimationFrame polyfill and the map should be happy in IE9 again.
  • I tweaked the presentation of polity labels seen when you first load the page - they wrap so they're a little more readable now. Sector names now wrap too, which more closely matches the Imperium Map poster. I was also able to bump up the font size. In summary: the initial view of the map should be prettier.
  • If you view the map using a modern browser that supports devicePixelRatio on a device with a high-density ("retina") display, such as an iPhone 4S/5, iPad 3, newer MacBook, Android, or even the shiny Chromebook "Pixel", the tiles are now rendered with higher quality. Summary: more pretty!
  • On a retro kick, I swapped in the data, borders and routes from Group One's Theta Borealis Sector supplement. Watch out for the Zerp! Note that the double worlds in the original's hexes 2901 and 2118 are not shown on the map and won't appear in the data.

  • Original - Group One
    TravellerMap.com
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12 comments:

77topaz said...

A bug report: for the last two days or thereabouts, the image tiles on the main page do not load, while sector.htm works fine.

Joshua Bell said...

@77topaz: What OS/browser/version?

Also, can you pop open your javascript console and see if any errors are being reported?

Joshua Bell said...

Never mind, fixed it. Derp - I had broken my requestAnimationFrame polyfill at some point without noticing. I assume you were using IE8 or IE9 on Windows? That's the only modern-ish browser that doesn't support it natively.

Sorry about that! Also fixed the scroll buttons which were broken everywhere.

77topaz said...

I'm using IE9 on Windows, and now it appears to be fixed, though I still have to refresh to purge the caches.

What era is the Group One data? It's mismatched with the sector around it, which are all barren, and it doesn't match the dotmap of the "previous" version either.

Joshua Bell said...

The Group One data is Classic Traveller 1105-ish. I'm not surprised that it doesn't match up - it was designed in a vacuum and hasn't really been popularized in data sets e.g. CORE, Galactic, BeRKA's, etc.

I added it to preserve the data as a historical curiosity, much like the Paranoia Press (Vanguard Reaches, Beyond) and FASA (Far Frontiers) sectors. I'd do the same with the Judges Guild sectors, but those did get revisited and have newer OTU data.

Perhaps some day they'll get a revamp to modern standards or revisited by new publications. But for now I like preserving them with quirks.

77topaz said...

Maybe a special parameter could be created to view "retro" versions of sectors like Group One, the Beyond, Vanguard Reaches and the Judge's Guild sectors, with the "normal" versions as default?

Joshua Bell said...

Yes, being able to select alternate Universes as well as Eras is on the TODO list.

77topaz said...

Another bug report: the line of text that displays information about the location you clicked on seems to have disappeared.

Joshua Bell said...

@77topaz - I was just uploading a change to the code for that - see the next post. Do a reload in your browser?

77topaz said...

In Humphreys' sectors, worlds appear with hydrographic code B, like 2510 Centrax. Do these mean anything, or are they just errors?

77topaz said...

With regards to the "retro" data, if I were to, for example, create data for Mavuzog, should I use the Group One or barren data for Theta Borealis as reference?

Joshua Bell said...

Re: hydrographic code B - just errors, Humphreys is working to clean that up.


Re: retro data - I plan to keep the Group One version there until a more official one comes about. That may be never, that may be within the next few years. If it does happen, it may attempt to pay homage to the Group One version or may replace it with something that bears no relationship.

So I'd say it depends on your goals - do you want the "big map" to look consistent, do you want something that's good for your players, etc.