[mapserver-dev] REST config API

[Brent Fraser]

I'm hijacking Bart's thread, but the issues are somewhat related...

Maybe I should have said "self-configurable", or "data-derived defaults".  For 
example, a new user should be able to create a MAP file as simple as:

MAP
   LAYER
     DATA "/tmp/myfeatures.shp"
   END # LaYER
END MAP

and have mapserver generate an image (e.g. default to PNG, 800x800, black lines 
on a white background, get the extents from the datasource, etc), or have a 
query mode return simplistic html with all the feature's attributes.  A kind of 
"Hello world" of map serving.  They could then improve the output by modifying 
the MAP file, creating templates, etc.  This is basically an ease-of-config (and 
learning) thing.


   The other (but related) aspect is more difficult to give a short example. 
Lately I've been using relational databases to store most of my map features. 
The number (and NAME) of CLASSes can vary from day to day since users can create 
them in database.  I'd like to be able to have mapserver query the datasource 
for the number of CLASSes instead of having to hard-code a MAP file.  Yes I can 
use mapscript to do this, but I think there would be an elegance in having the 
CGI version more tolerant of a varying number of CLASSes (and perhaps LAYERs?)

Sheesh, what's next? Drag-and-drop shapefiles onto your browser? A web based GIS 
app?

Thanks!
Brent


Howard Butler wrote:
> On Mar 31, 2010, at 12:05 PM, Brent Fraser wrote:
>> making somewhat Mapserver configurable on-the-fly (or at least making the default behavior more implementor-friendly) is something I'm interested in.
> 
> Doesn't mapfile substitution get you 80% of the way there already?  You can do some impressive and somewhat scary things with that right now.  A problem with it is it is not well known, lightly documented, and has limited examples of usage.
> 
> 
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