Foundation and Mapserver MAP file manag e tool

[Bart van den Eijnden]

Hi Flavio,

the tool should not be intended for people like you and me who can edit 
mapfiles with a text editor. I do it that way and will continue to do so 
probably.

The purpose of such a tool would be for people unexperienced with the 
MAP file format.

The tools you mention are out there, but only export MAP files. But most 
tools lack an import option which would also be important.

Maybe it would be good to first define what functions such a tool should 
have. Next to just making a MAP file, there could be tools which 
simplify making tile indexes etc.

Best regards,
Bart

Flavio Hendry wrote:

>Bob and all
>
>The initial question was about having some WYSIWYG tool for editing 
>MapFiles. There are some out there, I mentioned most of them on 
>http://umn.mapserver.ch - the ultimate mapfile resource :-)
>
>Despite that, there is totally another issue, which is not covered by 
>any tools: most maps are simply, let's be nasty and name it in caps: 
>UGLY (the mapserver gallery is my witness). No tool will help there.
>
>And on the tool discussion. We use MapInfo MapXtreme, ESRI ArcIMS and 
>UMN MapServer, and there are tools all over:
>- for MapXtreme, MapInfo can be used, pretty straight forward and fine, 
>especially if you have it anyay for your desktop stuff
>- for ArcIMS finally you can use ArcGIS, pretty straight forward and 
>fine, especially if you have it anyay for your desktop stuff
>- for ArcIMS there is/was AXL, far uglier then XML ... (see my previous 
>XML remark ...)
>- for MapServer there are almost all of them, an ArcGIS tool (pretty 
>odd IHMO), a MapInfo tool (from us, pretty outdated), MapEDIT and one 
>of the best of it, UltraEdit (Bob, excuse, I am a Windows guy, vi 
>sounds like nightmares ...)
>
>Anyway, having a long term experience with all of them, MapFiles are 
>the fastest and most flaxible one can have ... I said it: just love 
>them. Don't dare touching them, or I will be :-(((((((!
>
>Mit freundlichem Gruss / Best Regards
>Flavio Hendry
>
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-- 
+------------------------+
| Bart van den Eijnden   |
| OSGIS, Open Source GIS |
| http://www.osgis.nl    |
+------------------------+