After some brief mucking about with loading XML into the DOM etc, I have decided that given the amount of data that will need to be loaded will be enormous. Gunna go with the shadow database idea instead.<br><br>Have found an interesting plugin for typo3 which uses Google maps to locate stores based on data you have stored in its MYSQL database. Gunna have a play with it and see what possibilities it holds.
<br><br>Looks like this may solve my problem, I'll keep you updated on the progress.<br><br>Cheers<br><br>Brad<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 27/11/2007, <b class="gmail_sendername">Tara Athan</b> <<a href="mailto:tara_athan@alt2is.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
tara_athan@alt2is.com
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
There seems to be a missing message in this thread from Bradley
Spencer, perhaps sent directly to Bradley McLain, rather than the
mailing list? I would be interested in his solution.<br>
******<br>
I have recently constructed such an implementation- it may be
instructive for you to hear what we have done.<br>
The demo map appears at<br>
<a href="http://alt2is.com/hcvMaps/latin1/html/hcvoppsmap_utf8.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://alt2is.com/hcvMaps/latin1/html/hcvoppsmap_utf8.html</a><br>
In this particular case, php is used to create the marker text file
from a database query.<br>
{You can't see the php from the link above, of course but I am happy to
share code snippets if some one is interested.}<br>
This presents the same information for all users. The next step in our
implementation is to bring in the query capability.<br>
Presently our map shows the number of all volunteer opportunities in
each country. We would like to allow the user to instead show that
number of opportunities that match their specifications- specialty
field, duration etc.- and have the link lead to a list of only these
matches.<br>
This requires a database query when the user requests the map. Our
plan is to use a php file to query the database (also a<br>
shadow database as you are considering, containing only information
relevant for the map, and synchronized with the main database regularly
using cron and a php script).<br>
If a text layer is used, then each user will be creating a unique
text file on the server, which is given some unique name that is
passed to the html file by php. Some mechanism must be created to
delete these files when the user is done with them.<br>
An alternative is to write marker information directly to the html
file. This has different options for the markers, including<br>
> Markers with no pop-up, see
<a href="http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/markers.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/markers.html</a><br>
>Anchored bubbles, which offer the possibility of changing the
style of the popup, which is not possible with the text layer: see
<a href="http://dev.openlayers.org/docs/files/OpenLayers/Popup/AnchoredBubble-js.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://dev.openlayers.org/docs/files/OpenLayers/Popup/AnchoredBubble-js.html
</a><br>
and <a href="http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/popups.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/popups.html</a><br>
However, based on the problems I see in this example, perhaps anchored
bubbles are not stable yet, or the example code has bugs...<br>
I am debating which way to go and am interested in the experience of
others- Thanks<br>
Tara<br>
Bradley McLain wrote:
<blockquote type="cite"><div><span>@ Linda I have been told that it would be preferable not
to directly access the information, they would prefer that the
information is dumped nightly to something else (text file or another
database) and then accessed that way. I thought that a text file would
be the easier option, given the smaller size and ease of maintenance.
<br>
<br>
@Brad, this sounds like the kinda of thing that I want to do. Doing it
this way will I be able to build some sort of interface that allows
users to search and display the markers that they want?<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
<br>
Brad<br>
<br>
<br>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 27/11/2007, <b class="gmail_sendername">Linda Rawson</b> <<a href="mailto:linda.rawson@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">linda.rawson@gmail.com
</a>>
wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>Why don't you just create a database view of the information
and make it available via a web service and your users would always
have up to date information.</div>
<span>
<div> </div>
<div>Linda<br>
<br>
</div>
</span>
<div><span>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 26, 2007 3:12 PM, Julien-Samuel
Lacroix <<a href="mailto:jlacroix@mapgears.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">jlacroix@mapgears.com</a>>
wrote:
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi,<br>
<br>
You have a great resource of examples here:<br>
<a href="http://www.openlayers.org/dev/examples/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.openlayers.org/dev/examples/</a><br>
<br>
Check the markersTextLayer.html example to have an example of a layer<br>
that comes from a csv file.<br>
(<a href="http://www.openlayers.org/dev/examples/markersTextLayer.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.openlayers.org/dev/examples/markersTextLayer.html</a>)<br>
<br>
There's also use gml (see the gml-layer.html) if you prefer xml files.<br>
<br>
Julien<br>
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
Bradley McLain wrote:<br>
> Ok what I am trying to do is to have a progress database dump all<br>
> relevant information about various locations in some form of text
file<br>
> nightly.<br>
><br>
> I then want to use OpenLayers to read from/query this file and
display<br>
> the relevant information.<br>
><br>
> I was wondering if this is possible to do, can OpenLayers
read/query a<br>
> text file such as a csv or xml?
<br>
><br>
> Cheers<br>
><br>
> Brad<br>
><br>
><br>
</div>
</div>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
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http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users</a>
<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Julien-Samuel Lacroix<br>
Mapgears<br>
<a href="http://www.mapgears.com/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.mapgears.com/</a><br>
_______________________________________________
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Users mailing list
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</font></blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</span></div><pre><hr size="4" width="90%"><span>
_______________________________________________<br>Users mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Users@openlayers.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Users@openlayers.org</a>
<a href="http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users</a>
</span></pre>
<pre><hr size="4" width="90%">
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Tara Athan<br>
<pre cols="72">Principal, Alternatives to Invasive Species<br><a href="mailto:tara_athan@alt2is.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">tara_athan@alt2is.com</a>
707-485-1198
PO Box 415
Redwood Valley, CA 95470</pre>
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