[Mapserver-dev] hierarchical map files

[Carlo A. Bertelli]

Hello,
definitely, when you have a lot of layers, MS maps are not easily
manageable between several applications.
Adding "group" has been a very good idea, but what I think could easily
help could be a sort of "include" clause to make up simple hierarchic
system, referencing layers in another map.
This could be very useful if tied to the maxscale/minscal mechanism.
Say you have a complex application with several layers used as a base
map and just one or two layers as the main target. It could be really
easier if you could just reference a "base.map" (as usual) and just
have some specific layer this map file. Obviously, when you update the
base.map all applications could benefit of the update whithout any need
to fix up everything.
Now we resort to WMS maps to handle this situation, but I think
hierarchical maps could be a better idea.
Carlo