How to mapscript a box or two...

[Doug Nebert]

For our new Clearinghouse Search gateway (to help people locate 
geospatial data in approx 200 servers!) we would like to link in the map 
server to help the user locate their area of interest and also to then 
show the results that were found "on the map".

So the problem at hand is:

I have a basemap (lat-long coords) and I have a number of returned 
rectangle values in N W S E format, one rectangle per data set being 
flagged. I would like to first define the bounds of the map to be drawn 
just a bit larger than the sum total extents of the rectangles, then to 
draw on that basemap several rectangles (each rectangle a different 
color) one for each data set represented. In effect, if I want to 
visualize where the current hit list of ten datasets lies, I would have 
an orientation map with n colored rectangles on it.

I sense that mapscript would allow one to do this but don't know where 
to start. Can someone provide sample code for me to start with?

Doug.