[mapguide-users] 1.2 RC1 Bugs and "Newbie" Impressions

[Andy Morsell]

Here are some of my opinions on these topics after doing literally dozens of
installs of MGOS / MGE release versions, betas, etc.  
 
* Installing an update.  I don't see this as a large issue.  You can save
your entire repository as a package and then load it or keep your repository
outside of the default location.  As for me, I always maintain the
repository on a the data volume and never in program files.  Granted, it can
be a bit of a pain (2 minutes maximum) to change the paths after each
install, but it's not a huge deal since this can be done in server admin or
by directly editing the server/bin/serverconfig.ini file.  It is ALWAYS a
good idea to back up the serverconfig.ini file so you can refer to these
settings.  Especially with newer releases where unmanaged aliases will also
be stored.
 
* Password.  So change it from the default the first time you access server
admin.  Again, not a huge deal to me.  If you've retained your repository
from a prior install and then change your path settings to point to this
location, restart the service, then your previously changed password will be
obeyed.
 
* Data directories.  See my first response, it's not hard to change
immediately following the installation and you can either the use the admin
GUI or do it manually.  
 
* Unmanaged SHP files.  Agreed, and I have seen these problems first hand
and hope to see them addressed in the future.
 
* Webstudio.  Can't offer much opinion on this since I use Autodesk Studio,
but the developers have acknowledged that this OPEN SOURCE package is
lacking in some ways and could benefit from the contribution of the user
community, either via coding help or funding.
 
In short, we all have to remember that this is an open source project and
things aren't perfect.  If you want to see things changed, such as the first
3 items, then add an enhancement request to Trac and perhaps it will be
integrated.  But, in cases like this where they are not critical items,
other critical items will most likely take precedence.

Andy Morsell, P.E. 
Spatial Integrators, Inc. 
http://www.SpatialGIS.com 

  _____  

From: mapguide-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:mapguide-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Eric Bickle
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 8:42 PM
To: 'MapGuide Users Mail List'
Subject: [mapguide-users] 1.2 RC1 Bugs and "Newbie" Impressions



I'm a relatively new user to MapGuide, and I thought I'd share my
impressions upgrading to v1.2 RC1. I realize some of my thinking might be
flawed, but perhaps it might shed some insight into what a new user will
experience using the software.

 

Core Bugs / Issues:

 

* Installing 1.2 RC1 from 1.1. The 1.2 installer couldn't perform an upgrade
- instead, it asked me to uninstall the previous version. I did so, then
installed 1.2. All of my 1.1 settings were lost, including my custom
repository paths pointing to our "data" volume.

 

* Installing the product always defaults to the "admin" password. This is
very bad from a security standpoint (for example, Microsoft had been blasted
for this in SQL Server about 8+ years ago). The installer should prompt the
user for an administrator password during installation (and be sure not to
log it in the install log). This is an absolute must, IMHO. Initial
installations of *any* product should not be insecure.

 

* There needs to be a way to reconfigure the "data directories" during
installation. The majority of production server installations separate the
"OS" volume from the "data" volume.

 

* I'm not sure if this has been resolved, but put me down for a vote in the
"SHP file performance is absolutely critical" camp. I know that there were
some recent problems as the # of files increased.

 

 

Web Studio Bugs:

 

* All of the following bugs were seen in Firefox 2.0.0.4

 

* Installing the IIS web service extensions did not correctly add
"index.html" to the default document list. As a result, going to
http://localhost/mapguide/mapstudio gave a 404.

 

* Login screen defaults to the "admin" password. This promotes insecure
implementations. 

 

* Clicking "reference unmanaged data" on the initial page brings up a 404.

 

* Clicking Tools->Map Agent brings up a "cannot connect to server". It
defaults to 127.0.0.1:8001 rather than the server I specified in the connect
window. Is this correct?

 

* After getting the "cannot connect to server" error, I clicked X twice to
close the two open documents. Site explorer then showed an animation as
though it was working - however, it clearly was not doing anything.

 

* I get a popup message saying "ERROR" quite a bit, even though I'm not
doing anything at the time.

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