[mapserver-users] Mapserver Bootstrap Group

[woodbri at swoodbridge.com]

Don,

What might be better is that you ask your questions here and then 
document the answers on wiki as QuickStart or 
WhatToDoAfterTheDemoWorks page. Then we will have that resource for 
other people trying to get started.

Some of the common problems people have moving on from the demo are:

1) they forget to change the extents to match their new data
1a) they don't know how to figure out the extents of their data
2) they forget to change the UNITS to match their data
3) various questions about using other types of data (ie: not 
shapefiles)
4) How do I add points/tracks to the map dynamically
5) various questions about how to configure their mapfiles
6) how to make the reference map
7) how to structure data multiple files into one layer (ie: like 
3000+ road files on a per county basis in the US)
8) how to set up spatial indexes
9) various questions on how to use raster layers
10) various questions on how to use projections or re-project data

Anyway this is what I remember off the top of my head. I've probably 
missed some key ones, but I think you can see that if you had answers 
to these it would be a great help toward moving beyond the demo 
application. So I ask that you keep the discussion here and I am more 
than happy to help you build up a Newbies FAQ or GettingStartedGuide 
or whatever you want to call it.

-Steve W.
5) How do I add labels/symbols to the map dynamically

On 8 Aug 2002 at 22:44, Don Holeman wrote:

> I am about at this step too, having compiled mapserver and walked through
> the tutorial and studied the page composition of the tutorial examples. I've
> been following discussons on this list as well, and while I'm learning a lot
> of intermediate and advanced material I'm missing a lot of the basics, which
> I'm rather embarrased to bother this list with as I know how redundant such
> questions get.
> 
> Would anyone in the same boat care to join me in creating a short-term
> Mapserver bootstrap group at yahoogroups where we could handhold each other
> while we get ourselves up to speed with respect to the basics of  GIS and
> Mapserver?
> 
> If so, you can join me here:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bootstrappingmapserver/
> 
> Best,
> Don Holeman
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Zhang, William" <wzhang at c-cor.net>
> To: <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 8:07 PM
> Subject: [mapserver-users] Simple Map File Question
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I succeeded in compiling and runing MapServer demo on Win2000 with IIS 5.0.
> Now I am trying to study the tutorials and get problem. When I run the
> tutorial Section 1 -- Example 1 with the map file
> 
> NAME S1EX1
> EXTENT -97.238976 41.619778 -82.122902 49.38562
> SIZE 400 300
> SHAPEPATH "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\itasca\test\tutorial35"
> LAYER # States
>   NAME "states"
>   DATA states_ugl
>   STATUS DEFAULT
>   TYPE POLYGON
>   CLASSITEM "STATE"
>   CLASS
>     NAME "Michigan"
>     COLOR 255 255 128
>     OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
>   END # end of class object
> END # end of layer object
> END # end of map file
> 
> It works fine. But when I changed the map file to
> 
> NAME S1EX1
> EXTENT -97.238976 41.619778 -82.122902 49.38562
> SIZE 400 300
> SHAPEPATH "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\itasca\test\tutorial35"
> LAYER # Roads
>   NAME "roads"
>   DATA roads_ugl
>   STATUS ON
>   TYPE LINE
>   CLASSITEM "ROAD"
>   CLASS
>     NAME "MichiganROAD"
>     COLOR 255 255 128
>   END # end of class object
> END # end of layer object
> END # end of map file
> 
> This does not work. It only shows a blank box. I downloaded roads_ugl.shp,
> roads_ugl.shx and roads_ugl.dbf from
> http://terrasip.gis.umn.edu/projects/tutorial35/download.html
> and put them in the SHAPEPATH specified directory. I think it must be
> something wrong in my map file. Could somebody kindly give me a hint?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> William Zhang
> 
> C-Cor.net
> E-Mail: wzhang at c-cor.net
> Phone: (925) 251-3019
> Fax:   (925) 467-0600
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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