I'm currently looking at the options regarding how to do a strategic map for a web application.
My goals here are :
- a synthethic view of what's happening in a stelar system
- the ability to management movements (through displaying trajectories of some ships and planets/star(s))
- the development should'nt take years, since we're few on the project
The usability challenges at hands are IMHO:
- scale issues: both in terms of ships/planets/stars volumes and distance. In the end, I guess markers/symbols are the way to go
- density of information: there could be much there
- frequent updates of the map needed (every 30 seconds or so, would be better if partial reload/refresh possible)
Options I'm aware of:
use of a table, through the background image and cells images
- + easy to do on my own
- + partial refresh possible (ajax on a per cell basis)
- - very low resolution => looks poor
JavaScript map drawing
- + looks very powerful
- - big work needed (I haven't found pre existing plugin/library/framework doing this, whereas I'm not a JavaScript guru)
- - way to go unclear: canvas or dom manipulation?
use of svg pictures
- + resolution amazing
- + http://raphaeljs.com/ to the rescue
- - I don't know much about svg
CSS3
- I'm rather clueless about it, what about performance/cross browser support and the like...
As a side note, I don't want to bother too much for IE.
Did I miss something obvious? What would you suggest?
thanks in advance best
BTW, a related topic but more focused on svg: Is SVG a viable technology choice for web-based game?