Map Tab View

The Map view is optional, and requires that you have a suitable map bitmap (image) file available.  This tab will appear automatically once a map is set up (under Maintenance / Park Setup / Maps).

The map view is an image representation of your campground, with indicator "elements" placed on each site to show the status.  If necessary, you can have multiple maps to represent different areas of your park, or multiple parks -- or even use multiple images to represent the same area but with different aspects (e.g. a separate map showing additional overflow spots available during special events).

Note that when printing a map view, it will automatically be sized to fit on the page.  (If printing in Portrait mode, it will fit to the width of the paper but will generally fill only the top half of the page.)

Most of the controls on the map are similar to the Rack -- you can select the From and To dates to show status for a date range, Reset to today, and select the Site Type, Site Class, or Park to show.

Selecting a Map

In addition to the typical controls, there is a drop-down list for selecting which map to view.  If you have only one map, of course, this is ineffective.  If you have multiple maps, you can select the map to view from the list, or you can cycle through them with the arrow buttons on each side of the list.

In addition to the selection list/buttons, you can use the Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys to change map pages.  Note that the "focus" has to be on the map to do this, so if the key doesn't work, click once on the map first.

You can also place "hotspots" on a map that will change to a selected map when clicked on.  This can be used to "zoom in" on a section of an overview map, or you can set up "buttons" on a map image and click on those to change maps.

Options

There are just a few options for the map view:

Default Map -- This selects the default map shown on program start-up and when the Reset/Today is clicked.  You can also leave the default blank, in which case the first map will be shown by default, but the map will not change when Reset/Today is clicked.  (The map order can be changed in Setup, so you can still specify which map shows up first by changing the order.)

Use reservation color coding -- Select this if you want to see the status for reservations colored exactly as on the Rack and other tab views, rather than the generic coloring for reserved/occupied (map colors).  This only applies if there is only one reservation occupying a site for the selected date range.  If more than one reservation occupies the site for those dates, it reverts to the generic reserved/occupied colors for the map.

Show Owner reservations -- If this is checked, the appropriate status color will be shown for Owner-type reservations if no other status applies.  This is generally the same as "available" except for a lighter color text, but can be useful if trying to locate available sites with or without an owner.

Color Key

The map has a separate color key to determine the color for site indicators.  This is a simpler color key, for the most part indicating whether a site is open, occupied now, or reserved (not yet occupied).  If it's open, it can also indicate that a site is unavailable, "blocked" by a reservation, or it should be open today but yesterday's occupant has not yet been checked out.  Conflicting reservations are also indicated, and if you have a site type filter selected (e.g. showing only Tent sites), then any sites that don't match the criteria are considered "inappropriate" and will be shown in a different color (normally dark grey).

The color key can be viewed and colors changed from the right-click menu or from the View / Color key for Maps option.

Site Status and Interaction

As described above, the site indicators will be filled with an appropriate status color -- either from the simplified Map color key or from the Reservation color key.  Generally any status color other than the "open" color (normally white) indicates that the site is not available for reservations.  The one exception is the "may be available" color (normally a very light green).  This indicates that there is no reservation for the current dates, but there is someone checked in to that site that is supposed to be leaving.  This means that the site should probably be checked before putting someone in it, since the current occupant may not have left yet.  Once the occupant is checked out, the site will return to Open status.

Interaction with the Map view is similar to the Rack.  When you move the cursor over a site indicator, a pop-up tip will show the current occupant name, or the site description if there is no occupant.  If an occupant is due out today, their name will be shown with a note that they are due out today.

Double-clicking will work the same as on the Rack -- if there is an occupant, the quick-info window will be shown for that reservation.  If there is more than one occupant for the selected date range, a list of occupants will be shown, and you can view the details of each one from there.  If there is no occupant and the site is available (even if there is an occupant due out today but not yet checked out), a New Reservation window will appear, starting a new reservation for that site.  The dates will default to the From and To dates selected.  If the site is unoccupied but not available or inappropriate for the selected type, a quick-info window will appear with the site information.

Right-click functions are also similar to the other views, as appropriate for the site clicked on (if you click outside a site indicator, the functions are limited to printing and viewing the color key).  One exception is that if the site is open for tonight but last night's occupant is not yet checked out, the right-click menu is similar to an open site's menu but has a "For the reservation due out today" sub-menu, where you can access functions for that reservation.  From there you can check out the reservation, view details, and other related functions.

Copying the Map to the Clipboard

You can copy the entire map image to the clipboard, including the current site status indications.  This could be pasted into other documents, for instance.  To copy the map, first click somewhere on the map to make sure it has the keyboard focus.  Then use the standard Copy command, either Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Insert.