Halifax Heritage Building Tour







INSTRUCTIONS ON USING THE APP

The opening page of the app has five icons which lead to various types of background reference material.

HOMES
The first icon points to a page with all the homes listed. They can be searched by name, address, street or architect.

STREETS
The second icon points to a list of the streets where the homes are located.

STYLES
The third icon directs to a listing of the early architectural styles represented in Halifax.

ARCHITECTS
The fourth icon leads to a list of the important architects. For each architect there is a brief discussion and a scrollable slideshow of the homes designed by them.

WALKS
The fifth icon clicks to a list of four recommended walking tours.


Below the five reference icons, there are two buttons. The upper one leads to this instruction page.

The bottom button Start Halifax Tour leads to the important Map Page of the app.


THE MAP PAGE
The Map Page opens at a location centred at the Citadel Hill fortress above downtown Halifax. By default the map is in satellite view and resembles an aerial photograph. The circle dots represents the site of on of the homes. The color and size of the circle indicate the significance of the home. The blue dots are the oldest sites. The more important homes and sites, which are not quite as old, are marked in larger yellow circles followed by slightly smaller yellow circles for the next tier of homes. Clicking exactly on a circle causes the building name to appear in red letters.

The Map Page has five icons in two rows along the top.

DESCRIPTION OF NEAREST SITE
The Question Mark icon brings up the description page for the closest site to the map centre. If it clicked a second time, the next closest house is described, and so on.

TOUR SHOWN
Clicking the Strolling Man icon causes various recommended walking routes to be displayed.

STREET VIEW
The Yellow Man icon brings up the Google Street View for that location, assuming that it has been photographed by Google.

ROAD MAP
The Auto icon switches to a simpler map showing the streets but lacking the photo satellite view. The auto icon then switches to a blue Globe icon. Clicking this globe returns to the default satellite view.

TURN ON GPS
The important radio tower icon brings the centre of the map to align with your actual location. This tower icon turns red when activated.

Before this feature will work properly without crashing the app, the phone needs to have established a connection with the GPS satellite signal. Before starting the app, you might check your settings on the main phone page to make sure that the Location is set to use GPS satellites. Establishing an initial connection may take a moment or two. You can look for the Android icon that resembles a satellite receiver dish along the top edge of the screen. Or open the built in Google Maps application to see if the location is known. It will display as a blue triangle in the center of the Maps screen as soon as a connection is established.

LUNENBURG HERITAGE TOUR AND OTHER APPS