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Hi Dan and all,</div>
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These are good points to contemplate. Looking at the GeoMoose project, the niche filled, our userbase, and the process of setting up a GeoMoose site from scratch needs review since some of these things haven't been evaluated in probably ten years (GeoMoose
has been around a while now!)</div>
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<div class="elementToProof"><span style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Creating a MapFile used to be a right of passage with a text editor, the command line,
trial and error, and shp2img. Back in those days, there were ways to start with some example files and begin editing/refining. Speaking of E**I, (and things like Avenue, AML, and other old things), there were a few decent scripts to go from Ar*Map (or .axl)
to a 90% complete MapFile. TileMill and Mapnik went a similar way 2010ish and there is also Magnacarto. It sometimes surprises me that there is not more popularity for QGIS plugins to export to MapFiles or that various SLD efforts didn't take off more.
I think the creation of the MapFile is probably the biggest hurdle to GeoMoose implementation. Part of this may be ignorance on my part (getting good at MapFiles and then enjoying text editing them means that I'm not very aware of the easiest beginner paths
to making MapFiles). The link Brent sent could be informative in this regard. Getting back to some of Dan's questions, </span></div>
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<div class="elementToProof"><span style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">></span><span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">1.
How can we keep being the "plug-in-data-and-go" solution? How do we become the best at that? MapServer can feel very difficult to work with despite </span></div>
<div class="elementToProof"><span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">>its performance. I think MapServer 8 is a great piece of software and I understand many of the design decisions but
if I've grown up on E**I stuff, at this point,</span></div>
<div class="elementToProof"><span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">> it'll be difficult to approach.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I think the plug-in-data-and-go is our niche. I think to be the best at that, we need some kind of non-text editor MapFile styling method (this
could be E**I or QGIS export tools, a styling GUI, or something similar). If we can also offer a quick route to a working site with taxlots in one color with identify, select, and search working over OSM or other backgrounds, then users will know that it
is worth pursuing more effort in MapFile creation and other aspects of site configuration. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">>2. How can we get better at vector styling? This may be Ahab's Whale but is definitely something I think about. Styling in the app, styling data,
how do we </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">>serve data that is easy to style? Etc. etc.</span></div>
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I'm not entirely sure that I follow the vector styling. Do you mean in the app? I think that we do a reasonably good job with the various in app shape drawing and related aspects. I also see in app vector drawing and styling as a minor (but important) part
of the niche so not having that much potential since it is a minor part. </div>
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For the other more ambitious things on the list, I second Brent's comment of focusing on integrating best of class packages and your caution that keeping up with changes for any of those could be full time jobs. </div>
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I also prefer text files and version control, but that doesn't require a text editor (generated text files can be put in version control). </div>
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<div><span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Do people want to plan a chunk
of time for a session looking at the GeoMoose project, the niche filled, our userbase, and the process of setting up a GeoMoose site from scratch? We've discussed a sprint and could include reflection and planning in addition to code. </span></div>
<div><span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="letter-spacing: normal; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Best regards, Eli</span></div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>From:</b> geomoose-psc <geomoose-psc-bounces@lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Jim Klassen via geomoose-psc <geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, December 15, 2023 11:59 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org <geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [geomoose-psc] When Open Specs Close</span>
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<div><span style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I strongly prefer text files (and their usefulness with version control) over GUIs for most things, but to
add to the text file editing pain, we still have a number of cases where an error in configuration causes everything to just stop working, usually with some gibberish console error like "j is undefined", instead of a message pointing at the problem. That
can be challenging to resolve even for those of us with years of GeoMoose experience... I suspect it is something that would cause most people who are staring out to just give up.<br>
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</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">On 12/14/23 19:02, Brent Fraser via geomoose-psc wrote:</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Hi Dan (and others),</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">So many things to consider, but to stay focused I would say: </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Keep it simple, and stick to what we're good at: integrating best of class packages (such as mapserver, GeoServer, and OpenLayers).</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I would look for a good mapserver mapfile editor (or style creator) project and integrate that into our workflows.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 102, 147);"><u><a href="https://github.com/MapServer/MapServer/wiki/MapFile-Editors" id="OWAf57e1ed9-ae6f-b989-cdd2-c5ad8cc5544d" class="x_moz-txt-link-freetext OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-fr-linked="true" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 147);">https://github.com/MapServer/MapServer/wiki/MapFile-Editors</a></u></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">As for vector styling (especially via GM's mapbook), do we have any users interested in doing that? If we do, something like GeoStyler might be the answer. Our involvement could
be as simple as adding How-to (or even just a link) to our doc.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A couple of years ago I started writing a GeoMoose Implementation Roadmap to help new users create a working site with their data. It was scary how much text file editing you had
to do on the server (and you better get the syntax right).</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Best Regards,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Brent</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">From</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">: "Dan Little via geomoose-psc"
<a href="mailto:geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org" id="OWA87dec2d4-40aa-bd51-d71f-b87a573cd942" class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E OWAAutoLink">
<geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org></a><br>
</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Sent</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">: 12/14/23 9:25 AM<br>
</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">To</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">: GeoMOOSE PSC
<a href="mailto:geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org" id="OWA7f7102f2-992d-db53-0ccc-05d13a148e84" class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E OWAAutoLink">
<geomoose-psc@lists.osgeo.org></a><br>
</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Subject</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">: [geomoose-psc] When Open Specs Close</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">-
</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 102, 147);"><u><a href="https://github.com/openlayers/ol-mapbox-style/pull/940#issuecomment-1855415159" id="OWA9b2c691d-130d-a967-f7f3-c685eb8aeb5a" class="x_moz-txt-link-freetext OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 147);">https://github.com/openlayers/ol-mapbox-style/pull/940#issuecomment-1855415159</a></u></span></div>
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">We use a "vendored" version of the ol-mapbox-style-spec to power GeoMoose's styling right now. This may have an effect on us over the next few months that motivate
moving some of the styling engine over to something like GeoStyler's. </span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">This does force me to shine light on a few GeoMoose things that I've been struggling with in the last two years:</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">1. How can we keep being the "plug-in-data-and-go" solution? How do we become the best at that? MapServer can feel very difficult to work with despite its performance.
I think MapServer 8 is a great piece of software and I understand many of the design decisions but if I've grown up on E**I stuff, at this point, it'll be difficult to approach.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">2. How can we get better at vector styling? This may be Ahab's Whale but is definitely something I think about. Styling in the app, styling data, how do we
serve data that is easy to style? Etc. etc.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Things I know we can't make a part of our standard install and expect easy uptake:</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">- Cloud</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">- Docker</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">- "Compile."</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">There are solutions I would love to think about but have left off the table:</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">- Create a mapfile editor. It's been tried but with narrow constraints it might work.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">- Jump to QGIS server and/or piggy back on it to allow publishing whole apps. Keeping up with these changes are likely a full time job.</span></div>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">- "F**k it, we're the mapserver now!" Collaborate with or upon a solution written in rust or go that support cross platform compilation. Double click a binary,
it starts the server, go through the wizard to tell it where some data is, and you're off to the races. Want it as a service? Sure here's the 10-step guide to making it work with pm2 or on Debian.</span></div>
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<div style="direction: ltr;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Thank you for taking the space for this. 😆 I genuinely want us to have a product that people can use, use easily, and provide some real benefit to the ecosystem
in ways other projects aren't. I love that this team has always focused on what it takes to do GIS in the trenches and what that user profile looks like.</span></div>
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<pre><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">_______________________________________________
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