Place Navigation Bar
The place navigation bar ("Select a Place") at the top each Histopolis page provides
a quick way to navigate to a specific place in the Histopolis place hierarchy or
search for a place by name.
You may want to experiment with the Navigation Bar at the top of this page as you
read the following explanation to see it in action.
Place Hierarchy
Counties, states, counties, townships, cities and cemeteries are all examples of
types of places in Histopolis. These places are organized into a hierarchy; a country
contains states, states contain counties, etc. See the
Histopolis Place Hierarchy
to learn more about the place hierarchy.
Place Navigation
Indirect Place Navigation
Each place page contains a list of the places below it in the hierarchy that can
be used to navigate downward in the hierarchy, such as from a state to one of its
counties. Similarly, place pages also include links to the places above it in the
hierarchy, such as from a county to its state or country. These upward and downward
links allow the navigation from any place to any other place by visiting the each
of the intervening place pages in the hierarchy.
Direct Place Navigation
The Place Navigation Bar supports the direct navigation from any place to any other
place without visiting any of the intervening place pages in the hierarchy. The
navigation bar consists of dynamically populated drop down lists, one for each level
in the hierarchy.
Country
An "empty" navigation bar contains only a single drop down list containing a list
of countries (the United States and Puerto Rico are currently supported). The country
drop down list displays "(Country)" if no country is selected. When you select a
country, another drop down list appears to the right with a list of the next lower
administrative division for that country (a State in the United States).
State
The state drop down list appears after a country is selected. When you select a
state, another drop down list appears to the right with a list of the next lower
level administrative division (a County for most states).
County
The county drop down list appears after a state is selected. When you select a county,
two or three additional drop down lists appear to the right: townships, cities and
cemeteries. If the county does not contain townships (or equivalent) then that list
is not displayed.
Township
The township drop down list appears after a county is selected but only if the county
contains townships. If you select a township, the contents of the city and cemetery
lists will change to display only the cities and cemeteries in that township.
Cities
The cities drop down list appears after a county is selected and contains the cities
in that county. If a township has also been selected then the cities drop down list
displays only the cities in that township. If you select a city then the contents
of the cemetery list will change to display only the cemeteries in that city. If
the city selected is unincorporated, the cemetery list will disappear since and
unincorporated cities have no legal boundaries and cannot contain cemeteries (or
anything else).
Cemeteries
The cemetery drop down list appears after a county, township or incorporated city
is selected from the corresponding drop down list. Selecting a cemetery from the
list will cause immediate navigation to the place page for that cemetery.
Go Button
The above discussion describes how to navigate to a cemetery, which is at the lowest
level of the place hierarchy. The "Go" button allows you to navigate to higher level
places, such as countries, states, counties, etc. The Go button appears to the right
of the most recently selected drop down list. For example, to navigate to Sarpy
County in Nebraska, select "United States", "Nebraska", and "Sarpy" in the drop
down lists and then click on the Go button that is now immediately to the right
of the county drop down list where Sarpy County is selected.
The Go button is not necessary or available when selecting a cemetery since cemeteries
are at the lowest level in the place hierarchy.
Place Search
The search text box and "Search" button always appear at the far right of the drop
down lists in the Place Navigation Bar. Suppose you want to navigate to the city
of Bellevue, Nebraska but are not sure which county it is in. A list of places with
"Bellevue" in the name will be displayed if you type Bellevue in the search box
and click the "Search" button.
If no place is selected in the drop down lists, the search results will include
all places with Bellevue in the name in the Histopolis database. By selecting "United
States" and "Nebraska" in the drop down lists before initiating the search, the
results will be limited to only places named Bellevue wiithin Nebraska.
Place Dependent Variations
The description above uses the places types of state, county and township but not
every state calls its next lower administrative division a county and other countries
may not have states. The Place Navigation Bar will display the place types and number
of levels of subdivision appropriate to the currently selected place. For example,
if you select Puerto Rico instead of the United States, the next lower level administrative
division is a Municipio, not a State.
Navigation Bar Initialization
When you navigate to a place page, the Navigation Bar is initialized with the country,
state, county, etc. of the current place when the page loads. To use the navigation
bar to select a place in the same state but a different county, first change the
county selection and then make any other necessary selections below the county-level.
If the place for the current page is within a township or an incorporated city,
the list of cemeteries will include only those within the township and/or city.
If you want to see all of the cemeteries in the drop down list, select the first
item on the corresponding list, (Townships) or (Cities), which indicates that no
Township or City is selected.
The Navigation Bar will be initialized to either the United States or no country
will be selected for Histopolis pages that are not associated with a specific place,
such as the home page.
|
