dmMonocle is a stand-alone image viewer for CONTENTdm® collections, intended as a replacement for the default image viewer provided with CONTENTdm® 4.x and 5.x. The goal of the project is to make CONTENTdm® images, such as photos, maps, and scanned documents, easier to view and navigate. dmMonocle is written in JavaScript using jQuery, and provides patrons with the ability to zoom, pan, and rotate images on the fly without reloading the entire page. dmMonocle slices up large images into smaller square tiles, loading only the tiles in the visible area, much like Google Maps. In addition to the improved main viewing area, dmMonocle provides a thumbnail-sized navigator, showing patrons which part of the larger image they are viewing. The navigator may also be used to quickly move around an image. Finally, dmMonocle generates all tile images on the fly using software provided with CONTENTdm®, getimage.exe. dmMonocle is written by Brian Egan, Web/Multimedia Designer, UNLV Libraries.
Please Note: Documentation remains here, code moved to github: github.com/brianegan/dmmonocle
Upcoming Changes to dmMonocle
I am working on an updated version of dmMonocle which incorporates many ideas that I've heard about from this site and through email. The changes will include:
- Bug Fix: When rotating or zooming quickly, the program no longer behaves abnormally.
- New Feature: Printing/Downloading Functionality. Provide a menu of standard sizes from which a patron can choose.
- New Feature: Full Text Highlighting (ex: Search for "Snow" and the word "Snow" will be highlighted within the image if you have configured your images to do so with CONTENTdm).
- Changed Feature: Double-clicking now acts like Google Maps, in that if you double click on a location it will both center and zoom to that spot.
- Programmatic Fix: dmMonocle will now be encapsulated as a jquery plugin. This gives the plugin much more flexibility, and should eliminate conflicts with other JavaScript libraries, such as prototype or mootools.
Release Date: Because of the limited time I get to work on dmMonocle, no finite release date can be set at this point. Many of these features are in place, but need polishing, and finding time to make these changes, especially in this busy season, is extremely difficult. I expect to release an update in Q1 of 2010, but cannot be more specific as to a date.
