The Texas Tribune is pioneering a new era of coverage for the wild world of Texas politics. The journalism world is watching this internet-only start-up claim the territory formerly reserved for newspapers and local TV stations. To help solidify their ownership of Texas politics, we created a mapping system to provide the best graphical experience to understand trends across the state.

Unlike most Flash-based mapping systems, we created a tool that dynamically handles data, display and geography. Tribune staff can feed in any number of data files -- the Flash application automatically interprets the format and creates a layout to accomodate the preferences. Interpretation settings provide a range of options for rendering data. This way journalists can fine-tune the display to highlight important trends and information.

Finally, the geography is created directly from ESRI Shapefiles provided by the State of Texas. This allows staff to dynamically switch between county, Congressional District, State Legislature and other boundary lines. When those lines are updated through re-districting, the Tribune can swap-in new shapefiles without ever needing to open Flash.