Turning a problem into a solution

With the vast increase in people accessing web content on tablet-devices and smartphones over the past year or so, some rich, dynamic content that may previously have been programmed in Flash has to had be re-imagined as Apple iOS devices (iPads etc) and other platforms do not support the display of this type of content anymore.

One Idealogy client - Mettler Toledo PCE - recently needed a Flash location map updated to make it iPad and Smartphone friendly - no problem, we just pulled a different set of tools out of the bag to get the job done.

We used a JavaScript Mapping API to display the map data, customising the look of the map to display only the features we wanted - capital cities, national and continental borders in this instance - and setting the zoom level and centre point of the map in relation to the world as a whole.

The map could then be panned and zoomed, displaying map-markers at company locations which, when clicked, would pop open an info panel giving details and information about that particular company location.

After some initial testing locally we hooked the JavaScript libraries and HTML up to the SQL database in our Joomla CMS system so that, going forward, the client would have the ability to add and delete company locations, map-markers and the relevant information themselves via a control panel.

The original Flash map didn’t have this level of client customisation built into it, so from something that could have been seen as a ‘problem’ when raised by the client initially, we ended up producing a better solution that is future proof and, yes, looks very nice on our iPad - have a look: http://www.pharmacontrol.de/index.php/en/global-serialisation-deadlines

Posted by Idealogy