[mapserver-dev] Proposal to add built-in OpenLayers map viewer

[Daniel Morissette]

This was discussed at the code sprint in Barcelona, and I just created a
ticket for it. We'd like to add this to 6.0... but I am realizing just
now that maybe I should start with a RFC...

Anyway, here is what I wrote in the ticket, please feel free to comment,
keeping in mind this has to remain __simple__:

http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/ticket/3549

Every once in a while we get requests for a simple way to test a
mapfile. One way to handle this could be to do as GeoServer does and
provide a built-in OpenLayers based map viewer. In the GeoServer case,
this viewer is returned when one issues a WMS GetMap request with
format=application/openlayers in it.

I propose that we provide a similar functionality in MapServer, which
would be triggered in one of two ways:

1- Using mapserv?map=/path/to/my.map&'''mode=openlayers''' ... in this
case the viewer would be initialized based on the mapfile defaults, and
some of the traditional mapserv CGI params may also work (such as map
size, layer selection, etc.)

2- Using '''format=application/openlayers''' in a WMS GetMap request as
GeoServer does. Note that in this case the rest of the GetMap parameters
would be used to configure the map to view (BBOX, WIDTH, HEIGHT, LAYERS,
etc.)

Both cases would call the same function internally to produce a simple
OpenLayeres viewer with one singletile layer for the whole map with the
selected layers.


-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/