reducing user clicks

[Jonathan Callahan <Jonathan.S.Callahan@xxxxxxxx>]

benb wrote:

> Hi Jon,
>
> I noticed the layout of the LAS software menu page, and the menu selection method (especially the method of pull down menus used by the UK Met Office) of the two agencies listed below, is faster for going through the menus.  My LAS system has several pages of menus and is rather slow to work through the menus.
>
> National Environmental Research Council (http://www.nerc-essc.ac.uk/las/)
> National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)(http://dataserver.ucar.edu/arcas) ARCAS (ACACIA Regional Climate Data Access System)
>
> Can you tell me if this (these) other versions of LAS software are available? 
> Thank you,
>
> Ben
Ben,

The folks at NERC have implemented their own code to handle the menus on 
the left hand side.  We had nothing to do with it.  The ARCAS system is 
an older LAS 5 system which we no longer support and which lacks many 
features we have added over the past two years (e.g. database support). 
In the current code there are three main ways to alter the user data 
selection process.

1) The easiest way to simplify the pages is to use categories that allow 
you to organize the data in any manner you see fit.  Documentation on 
categories is available here:

http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/LASdoc/serve/cache/33.html

2) If you want to flatten some of the hierarchy you might have a look at 
the 'Yahoo! style' templates Roland Schweitzer has created.  These are 
documented here:

http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/LASdoc/serve/cache/47.html

3) Finally, you can use custom Velocity templates to provide any 
presentation you want.  Anything you can imagine doing in HTML you can 
do through this method, but there's nothing automatic about it.  You 
have to code the HTML.  This is recommended for fairly static LAS 
installations.

http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/LASdoc/serve/cache/34.html

I hope you find something to your liking amongst these options.  And 
please let us know how we might have a look at your server.  It's been a 
long haul since you first contacted us.


-- Jon