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GeoPortal 2.1 Released

GeoPortal 2.1.0 has been released. Changes/improvements in this release include:

  • The big thing: I moved the app into the HTML5 Boilerplate template. There are too many advantages to list (though if you want a list there's a nice one on their site). I don't know that I'd make another complex site without HTML5 Boilerplate as a starting point.
  • As part of the above and with some additional elbow grease, I did a lot of housekeeping. Things are cleaner, better, and easier to find. Lots of best practice stuff is incorporated, like moving JS to the bottom.
  • Improved geolocation handling. Now it waits until a user wants to be found before it bugs them to give up their location. It also is doing geolocation.watchPosition, with the ability to toggle that on and off.
  • Improved mobile device detection, so the ~5 people with Android tablets don't end up with the handheld layout.
  • Moved off of jQuery templates. That project didn't go where I was hoping it would, and it isn't going to be included in jQuery core anymore. Instead I made a jQuery plugin to render JSON into tables. It's a lot less code and is easier to maintain.
  • Lots of styling improvements, including no longer having the browser window spaz when the page is first loading on slow browsers (hides elements until jQuery UI is done with them).
  • Added [zoom to | permalink] to the selected record so you can send a link to a specific address or zoom back to the selected record if you get lost.
  • It loads a lot faster, particularly on mobile devices. This is mostly due to HTML5 Boilerplate's best practices and shuffling things like geolocation around.
  • I'm sure lots of other stuff I've forgotten.
Mecklenburg County's spin is here.

Have at it, and let me know if you spot any bugs. Patches are always welcome :).