[mapserver-users] Best way of returning data at a point and doing something with it?

[Lowell.Filak]

I don't know if you have looked at or used any mapscript yet but
option 2 would be easily done using mapscript/Perl or PHP. Your second
option seems to point more towards a PostGIS/SDE/SDO setup which could
also incorporate mapscript but not need to.
Lowell F.

On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, Robert Crossley wrote:

> Hi,
>
> First posting, so firstly I'd like to compliment the developers on the progress so far.  We've been trialling Mapserver for a month now, and have been able to make it do
> quite a lot thanks to the archives of this list and the docs so far.  Very impressed with the product.
>
> This list is also pretty impressive.  I've been on the MapInfo-L list for about 8 years now, and thought it was pretty good, but the correspondance that flows though this
> list overshadows that list greatly.  Be a while before I'll be able to contribute much, but will probably develop some MapInfo apps to generate Map files etc. that I could
> share.  Look forward to the development on being able to read Mapinfo files also.
>
> Anyway, we have reached a point in a project that we have to make some strategic decisions and we need some advice on the best way of proceeding from here.
>
> We have a Image Web Server (IWS) app delivering aerial and satellite imagery to clients and MapServer delivering vector data to the IWS server on request.  We
> also have an ActiveX control on the client side to give a lot of functionality at the client end (possibly to be replaced by a java applet in the future when IWS goes
> java).  The application is for a captive audience so can be as specific as we want.  Once this one is over, we intend to port it to a linux server, and have a simpler
> client side app that isn't MS based, but for now it is on a M$oft site.
>
> Our issue is to how best allow clients to query a location and change this data.
>
> We have used the standard query tool to be able to extract the data from a shape file and display in a table with a map.  Very cute.  We also put some buttons on it to
> close the window and dummy submit button to a database that could contain code to write data back to the server.
>
> But the data in the production system will be on a SQL server database, so it seems that we have a couple of options:
> - making the data for the query layer to be a table, or preferably a view in the M$ SQL-server database (how hard is this?)
> - make the query templates ASP pages that uses the ID retreived from MapServer to then retrieve the data from the database and display it in a table.
>
> It seems that either way, the page can have a submit button that calls a subroutine to process any changes to the data on the client side and writes it back to the
> database.
>
> The first option seems conceptually simpler and may be more powerful than we are giving it credit for, but the second option may be more flexable and allow us to
> eventually use a dll to do the data retreival from the database.  Like I said, am not sure of the implications of either, but would like any advice or pointers to docs on
> the subject.
>
> Thanks in advance
> Robert.
>
> Robert Crossley
> Robert Crossley & Associates
> 9 Short St
> New Brighton NSW 2483
> AUSTRALIA
>
> P: 02 6680 1309
> F: New Connection
> M: 0419 718 642
> E: robert at wotzhere.com
>
>
>