[Mapserver-users] newbee-questions: clients, data access, dynamic layers, cascading servers

[Frieso ter Haseborg]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lowell Filak [mailto:lfilak at medinaco.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 6:00 PM
> To: Frieso ter Haseborg; mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: Re: [Mapserver-users] newbee-questions: clients, data access,
> dynamic layers, cascading servers

First of all: thanx for the list of links - obviously I will have to do
some more studies. ;-)

>> 1.) What are common open-source web-gis-clients? We just 
>> want to check some alternatives.
> Not sure what you mean, WMS or WFS client or just a web browser?

Both. WMS and WFS Clients - I prefer browser-based, but if there are
non-browser-clients - I would at least take a look at.

>> 2.) Is it possible to retrieve data from a SQL-Database (Oracle, SQL
>> Server, Sybase ASA) with MapServer? If so, are there any how-to's or
>> tutorials?
> Yes, but it depends on if you are reading from a database with a
> "spatial" extension that directly supplies geographic data or 
> if you are reading simple attributes, such as the x & y coordinates 
> of a point, and need to create a geographic feature for display.

No, only the x&y-coordinates thing, no spatial support in the databases.
I just want to create a layer drawing a point and possibly a describing
label. Can MapServer do an data-access itsself or do I have to do this
in PHP or something?
 
>> 3.) Can I create dynamic layers from the data retrieved with 2.)?
> If the data is dynamically handled directly in the RDBMS and MS uses
> that data directly, ie. PostGIS then the database handles the 
> "dynamic" nature of the data and MS simply uses what the database 
> supplies.
> If the data comes from a shapefile and you want MS to handle 
> the changes
> to the data then you can use some flavor of MapScript to program that.

No shapefiles. Okay, perhaps I will have some shapefiles as basic layers
among some raster-files. Above this basic-layers I want to draw a layer
created from the data obtained from a the DBMS.

>> 4.) Is it possible to build a MapServer-configuration which serves
>> dynamic content (generated with 2. and 3.) to other OGC-WMS-Servers?
>AFAIK, yes.

Has anyone experiences with this, examples, howto's, any ressources,
hints? 

TIA,
Frieso