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

[Daniel Morissette]

Paul Ramsey wrote:
> The beauty part of mode=openlayers is that mapserver doesn't even need
> to ship code with it, it can just emit an HTML page that references
> openlayers.org. 

Exactly.

> Any framework that requires server-side components and
> isn't cloud-hosted already is kind of out-of-luck. 

A framework that already comes with some server-side dependencies could
presumably ship with a generic MapServer template that could already be
used today as a generic viewer with mode=browse... no special mode
required in this case I don't think.


> There could also be
> a mode=googlemaps in combination with the tile mode or a mode=bingmaps
> ...
> 

My comment about keeping this __simple__ was exactly to prevent a
proliferation of mode=this, mode=that, etc...

The initial need is to offer the users a __simple__ mechanism top\
preview a mapfile contents, not to link or promote any client framework
in particular. The choice of OpenLayers as the default is obvious in my
mind for a number of reasons, the main ones being outlined by Paul
above) but I respect the fact that others may have differing opinions.

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