[mapserver-dev] Couple of ideas for 6.2...

[Lime, Steve D (DNR)]

Hi all: I've got a couple of ideas for minor enhancements I'd like to add into 6.2 and am looking for feedback. I don't think
they quite rise to RFC status:

Adding runtime constants to common expression handling:

Basically it would be nice to expose a few runtime constants to MapServer logical expressions. Things like computed
extent, scale, image size, and cellsizer.  Syntax would be something like !name! following after the !bbox!
hack in PostGIS. While I'm only interested in MapServer logical expressions it's reasonable that certain drivers could
support them as well within their DATA/FILTER statements.

I'm proposing !bbox! (as define in PostGIS code), !minx! (etc...), !scale!, !width!, !height!, and !cellsize!.

One use for this would be triggering scaling on parameters passed to style GEOMTRANSFORMs (e.g a buffer).

Adding classgroup as a CGI parameter:

I've recently discovered the usefulness of class GROUP's in setting up a mapfile to render nicely with and without an
image background. It's very handy to manage 1 layer definition with alternative display configs. What sucks is triggering
the use of a group. Maybe I'm missing something but I had to do URL-based config on each layer that supported
the different class groups. It would be helpful to define a classgroup once and then for all layers with classes that use
it we set the layer CLASSGROUP. If a layer doesn't use it then no change is made.

Thoughts?

Steve

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