As a Dataverse installation admin or user, I'd like to know which and how many repositories are based in a location

[jggautier]

When markers on the current Dataverse installations map are too close together, the overlapping can make it look like there's only one marker:

It looks like there are five markers in Brazil, but there are six. We don't see and can't click on the sixth until we zoom in:

The administrator of a Dataverse installation in Brazil thought the installation wasn't on the map because its marker was hidden behind another marker. This is probably already the case in areas with more markers, like western Europe.

Hidden markers will make it harder for people to find installations in locations with lots of markers. And as more markers are added and hidden, the map will become less of an indication of the growing number of Dataverse installations.

One solution for this using the current map are animated marker clusters. Leaflet has a customizable plugin at https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet.markercluster and links to an example at https://leaflet.github.io/Leaflet.markercluster/example/marker-clustering-realworld.388.html.

Other solutions might involve using a list or table of installations that people can navigate to find installations in an area or find a particular installation.

[pdurbin]

I definitely agree this is a problem.

One solution for this using the current map are animated marker clusters.

Thanks to @poikilotherm we had marker clusters when pull request #20 was merged but it was ultimately reverted. Some screenshots from back then:

Other solutions might involve using a list or table of installations that people can navigate to find installations in an area or find a particular installation.

A list/table already exists at https://dataverse.org/installations and here's a screenshot:

[poikilotherm]

IIRC it was rejected because you wanted the markers to more visually indicate installation locations. We could simply size down the cluster radius to just fix cases where things overlap. IIRC the colors should be adjustable, too.

[TaniaSchlatter]

@poikilotherm you remember correctly. There are issues with the animated markers, like no visual indication of the area covered by the clustered marker. When that is combined with overlay on a map, locations were really inaccurate. That may not be a problem on maps that are more local, but it was not great on our global map. I'm interested in other examples.

[TaniaSchlatter]

This is a nice model of a more useful map, and includes filters: https://solve.mit.edu/events-map

[pdurbin]

In 49a6f86 I added a simple table at that lists installations by country: https://iqss.github.io/dataverse-installations/bycountry.html

It's by no means a complete solution to this issue but it's something.