Health Department - Environmental Health

E-Map - Making the Most of the Interactive Maps

Thank you for visiting the E-Map Web Interactive Maps. This page is intended to help you get the most out of the site by giving tips on navigating the pages and using your browser.

Navigating E-Map

The E-Map website is based on frames by default. When you first visited our site, you noticed the menu side bar on the left side of your browser window, our logo at the top of the window, a copyright notice at the bottom of the window, and actual useful content in the middle of the window. Each of these screen elements is in its own frame. This means that when you scroll the main content frame up or down, none of the other frames move up or down.

Here are some navigation tips:

• The side bar menu has its own scroll bar. Make sure you scroll down the side bar to see more links to E-Map pages.
• Many webpages get saved in a "cache" on your computer so that the next time you visit a page, it doesn't have to be downloaded again. This means that the page you are viewing may not contain the most current information. Check the date at the bottom of each page, and if it seems old, try to download a more recent update by clicking on your browser's "Reload" or "Refresh" button. If the date doesn't change, you have the most recent page.
• Rather than download the entire screen by clicking on the "Reload" or "Refresh" button, you can refresh just the frame of interest. Click the right mouse button in the frame, and select "Reload" or "Refresh" from the pop-up menu.

Finding a property on the map

Once you arrive at the Home (search) page in the interactive map you are given three choices in finding where on the map you want to be. You can search by address, pin number or by intersection.

• ADDRESS: The easiest method to arrive on the map is by using the address search, just click on the search by address link and enter the address in the format described on the page. If the address you enter isn't perfect don't worry, the ArcIMS will select several that come close to what you entered.
• STATE PIN NUMBER: This method is as easy to use as the address search but most people do not know the State pin number for the property. This search is useful if there is no address assigned to a vacant lot or you have paperwork from the Laramie County Assessor which gives you the fourteen digit state pin number.
• INTERSECTION: This method takes a little more input to find a location on the map, but it is not difficult. Just enter an intersection with cross streets as in the example given and ArcIMS will get you close to the area you are trying to find. Once on the map page you can navigate to an individual property if you so choose.

The results of your search will be displayed on the screen shortly after hitting the enter button. Once the results appear you will see a limited amount of information about those properties the ArcIMS found as possible candidates for your search. The higher the score, the closer the match to your entry. On this line you can click on the "Simple Map" that gives you a quick location, you can click on the "Parcel Report" that gives County Assessor info for that property or you can click on the "Detailed Map" which puts you into the interactive map where you can find many different catagories of information. If you select the detailed map it will take a few seconds to retrieve and display the map.

Finding information about the property

Now that you have arrived at the Interactive "Detailed Map" what do you do? You should notice a marker on the property you searched for, this marker is important because several of the map layers are based on that point, and will display info for that point. Here are some tips on using the maps:

• Once you arrive at the detailed map, your browser will lose the navigation buttons. To go back to the search page you can click on the blue text below the GIS Cooperative Logo to the right side of the screen and above the refresh map button.
  
• You should notice a tool bar on the right side of the map with fourteen buttons.each of those buttons will tell you what they do if you put the mouse curser on the button.
  
• If you choose to print a map a small box will appear in the lower left corner asking you to title the map, and then a button to push to create the map, when you create the map it will show you a display (in a new window)and give you a chance to view it prior to printing it.
  
• You can choose to display and make map layers active. If you do so you, MUST click the Refresh Map Button before your change will display.
  
• You can only use the identify tool on layers that are both active and visible.
  
• The map legend may give info that makes it unnecessary to identify the layers.
  
• If you identify a map layer the results will appear below the bottom of the map. If you have questions about that data you should contact the contact Name, Phone Number or email address listed in the metadata for that map layer. The matadata can be found by clicking on the blue text to the right of the active layer.

Printing pages from the E-Map section

Some people have expressed difficulty printing frames. All frames are created equal, and your browser cannot know which frame you want to print unless you give it some indication. Simply click your mouse somewhere in the frame you want to print before you select the print command. This works for Netscape and Internet Explorer Browsers. In Internet Explorer, you can also click on the frame you want to print with the right mouse button and select "Print" to print the frame you want. In Netscape, you can open the frame in its own window by clicking the frame with the right mouse button and selecting "Open Frame in New Window". Then with only one frame available in the new window, there is no confusion about what to print.

The design philosophy of the E-Map website has always been substance over style. There are too many websites which look great but impart little information. Many don't even look great. The target audience has always been the public, and anything which is of interest or value to them we will try to include. Content is therefore not always strictly about the environment. The tools used to produce this website were simply text editors. There is very little graphic content, so the use of graphics packages was rare. This style of web design requires getting your hands dirty in HTML. The HTML specification helps.

Who to contact

All website questions and comments may be directed to the Roy Kroeger. If you have links to add, corrections to point out, articles to submit, whatever, please feel free to email.