At times I allow myself to be dazzled by the work I’ve done so far. Wow! A landing page with links! A map that works! But it’s a high horse I’m repeatedly kicked off of as I attempt to insert interactive features, a new pin…a photo. Learning to code, even in HTML, requires a lot of time and energy, and most people who choose to do so don’t attempt to earn a PhD in the humanities as they’re doing it. This past week proved especially obnoxious as I tried to implement Leaflet, gave up, and switched to Mapbox, which didn’t make me feel nearly as inept. The frustrating part was that it shouldn’t have taken me more than a few minutes to complete. Part of the problem I faced was with slightly outdated advice on forums and even the original website, but the usual issues cropped up as well. Introduction tutorials assumed a certain level of knowledge (disclaimer: I did not have it) and required additional web searching, which, my more tech savvy friends assure me is the only way they get things done too.
That being said, watching my screen load with the correct popup features was so very satisfying. The landing page is far from complete, but the bones – very pretty bones – are present, and even without much of the information up, you can see the Map (page active) and Genealogy (also there in pieces) are ready for data entry. In this field, at least, I can feel confident moving forward.
This week I’ll be working on the family trees for the different lines of basket makers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find anything to would make a reasonable (and attractive) diagram, so I’m using a template from Bootstrap that was created to make a timeline. A modified version for simple connections should work for this project, but if the lineages become more complicated, it may require a different set of code. In addition, I’ll be working on the display pages for the 3D models. So, I anticipate a lot of negative feedback via blank screens and angry Atom notifications. If I’m lucky, after 23 commits I’ll finally watch it render, in all its glory on my 13 in laptop screen.
Recent Comments