[mapguide-users] MapGuide with Openlayers (Searching for Detailed yet Simple Development Examples)

[Paul Spencer]

Chris,

the simplest MapGuide + OpenLayers example is the one that comes with OpenLayers in the examples (http://dev.openlayers.org/releases/OpenLayers-2.8/examples/mapguide.html).

The problems start when you want to do anything more complicated than showing a MapDefinition as a layer in this way.  

OpenLayers is most efficient when you use minimal client-side layers, it really bogs down a browser to display a lot of separate layers.  The controls that come with OpenLayers assume that each image is a single entity, so if you want to display and control layers separately, you need to communicate with the server to get extra information about the layers that make up a map and to control the display of individual layers in a session (turn on and off).

OpenLayers selections are actually vector layers, to work with them you need to export individual vector features from layers in your MapDefinition and load them up on the client side.

A lot of the complexity of Fusion comes from the fundamental differences between OpenLayers and how MapGuide and MapServer users 'expect' things to work in a more GIS type application. 

Sorry, this probably hasn't been very helpful in solving your particular problem.  It just really isn't that easy to do what you are asking, otherwise I'm sure that the examples would already be out there.

Cheers

Paul

On 2010-03-18, at 12:21 PM, Chris Gountanis wrote:

> 
> I know the common answer to this is take a look at Fusions 65k lines of OOP
> inheritance rich code. If you are not used to JavaScript programming with
> higher level OOP concepts on a daily basis it can be a pain to reverse
> engineer. I will be checking out Fiddler later today as suggested by
> zspitzer in another post. I assume this is why there are ZERO simple
> break-down development examples on how to use Openlayers with MapGuide or
> ArcGIS.
> 
> 
> I think what people including myself are looking in simple in-line
> JavaScript:
> - Bring in a MapGuide Map showing separate layers as it was designed in
> Studio. Bringing in a map from MapGuide and having it show up in OpenLayers
> as a single overlay is not very useful for most MapGuide developers.
> - Allow built-in Openlayers selection methods on the layers that allow
> selections nothing fancy just show results in message box or something along
> those lines.
> - Show tool tips using MapGuide built-in tool tip settings.
> - Show some legend examples like Fusion but more of a simple JavaScript for
> beginners... nothing pretty just functional examples.
> 
> 
> To the point question: Is OpenLayers and MapGuide a priority or will it
> always be more for WMS overlay in general for max built-in functionality? I
> need to evaluate for our development projects and right now I am personally
> at a loss for MapGuide and ArcGIS with OL as the base client. I really want
> to get on board here and admit my advanced JavaScript is lacking but is
> there anything to help us get started with simple proof of concepts?
> 
> 
> -- 
> View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/MapGuide-with-Openlayers-Searching-for-Detailed-yet-Simple-Development-Examples-tp4757480p4757480.html
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