first steps and a basic question

[A. Giacomelli]

hi all,

I have just started to work with the package, and walking the first
steps on the learning curve...


working from the tutorial, I have prepared a simple map file.
This gives no errors, but only generates a white (or IMAGECOLOR, anyway)
image.


================================
NAME EX3
  EXTENT 1409000 4294000 1505000 4577000
  SIZE 300 400
  SHAPEPATH "/opt/gislab/apache/htdocs/m2/data"
  UNITS meters

    WEB
      TEMPLATE m2.html
      IMAGEPATH "/opt/gislab/apache/htdocs/tmp/"
      IMAGEURL "/tmp/"
    END

    LAYER
      NAME "towns"
      DATA towns
      STATUS DEFAULT
      TYPE POLYGON
      CLASS
        NAME "Towns"
        COLOR 255 0 128
        OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
      END
    END

  END
=================================

for a cross-check, I have tried to use also another shapefile (with
geographic coords, using -180/180 -90/90 as extent), which displays
perfectly.

I would assume the problem with the first dataset has something to do
with the extent, but maybe I am missing some other basic issue...

TIA for any suggestions,

Regards,

Andrea