[Mapserver-users] ActiveX IIS and Mapscript.

[Chip Hankley]

Dean,

>Basically what I want to do is get a Mapscript application working with IIS
>without resorting to having to install PHP or perl and preferably without
>needing a java engine installed either. The Mapscript application will
>basically read from catalogue and present the maps.
>
>So -
>Is there a COM component around that can be used within ASP. the archives
>suggest a demand for, and some work being completed towards an ActiveX
>component bit this seems to have petered out. (What happened?)
 
I asked this question a couple of years ago. My hunch is that everyone who has gone done this path has come to the conclusion that PHP and/or Perl (afaik, the Perl version of MapScript still doesn't work on Windows) work so darn well that trying to support VBScript/ASP just isn't worth the effort. I'm not an ASP person, but I work with a lot of ASP people. I've been running PHP/MapScript on IIS living in peaceful coexistance w/ ASP applications for a couple years now... IMHO, PHP is so far superior to ASP as to be, well, I'm not sure of the best adjective.
 
That said, if you REALLY want to use ASP, search the archives for a note from Ed McNierny on this subject. There are some pretty elegant work arounds that will allow you to use ASP (or PHP, or ColdFusion, or Perl) to hit the mapserver.exe, and pull back relevant information that can then be used by the scripting engine of your choice to make more dynamic pages.
 
Also, as Steve Lime pointed out the other day, you can do a lot of REALLY cool stuff with the plain-jane cgi mapserver, especially when you throw all of the DHTML tools in the mix... so, make sure that you REALLY need mapscript.
 
>Has anybody
>successfully compiled them using Borland C++ (Command Line)? Am I setting
>myself up for a fall suggesting that I will have a go at creating them. (I
>am not a C/C++ Programmer but have done a reasonable amount of
>programming in other languages).

Not sure about this, but, as far as compiling the other stuff on Windows goes, the $100 (or so) you'd spend on VC++ is worth your time. Almost all of the libraries that are out there have vc++ makefiles, but NOT Borland makefiles. ASFAIK, they are NOT interchangeable. So, you could end up re-creating Borland makefiles for every library you need... I'm sure everyone would appreciate your efforts in doing that, but I'd imagine you'd spend a LOT of time doing it.

Cheers!

Chip Hankley



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