[OpenLayers-Users] dynamic markers

[Tara Athan]

I should have been more specific in my question.
I would like to create the textfile for the markers, titles and 
descriptions dynamically from a database so that users can enter new 
markers and they appear on the map with minimal intervention from me.
I was planning to do this by the following steps
1. the user sees a map displaying the current markers from the text 
file, and an HTML form,
2. they click on the map to fill the lat lon fields in the form,
3.they type in the title, description and select characteristics from 
dropdown menus that determine the icon
4. PHP commands are used to enter this into a database (MySQL or 
PostGRES) on the server, along with an e-mail alert to the database admin
5. at regular intervals (i.e. daily), the text file is automatically 
updated from the database

I now know how to do steps 1, 3 and 4 but I'm not so sure about 2 and 
clueless about 5.
The example http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/google.html has controls 
that suggest it should be possible for user to add a marker to the map,  
but this example does not function for me (in Firefox 2.0.0.7, Windows 
XP SP2)
I am hoping that someone has already implemented an example like this, 
or accomplished the same thing by a different method.
I should mention that this would all be operating in a shared webhosting 
environment without root access.

Thanks, Tara



Linda Rawson wrote:
> Tara,
>  
> For SQL Server,
>  
> Take a look at this 
> article...http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=74882
>
>  OR
>
> You can set up an ODBC link and connect to that link via Excel to 
> produce a spreadsheet from which you could produce a text file.
>
> Linda Rawson
>  
>
>
> On 10/9/07, *Tara Athan* <tara_athan at alt2is.com 
> <mailto:tara_athan at alt2is.com>> wrote:
>
>     I did finally run across the documentation on the textfile format
>     here:
>     http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/MapViewerService
>     Thanks for your help- I have it working now.
>     Also thanks for the tip about working in Excel (or OpenOffice ;-)
>     )- it
>     is actually possible to create the text file in notepad but you
>     have to
>     put the tabs in the right place and then they look the same as spaces,
>     so it is very inconvenient.
>     Working in a spreadsheet allows me to fill down for all the duplicate
>     icons, sizes, etc. instead of typing them out.
>
>     Now if I can just figure out how to get the textfile from a database
>     query... anyone have an example of that?
>     Tara
>