Foundation and Mapserver MAP file manag e tool

[Bob Basques]

The biggest gain I can see with a XML approach, would be in the 
Cataloging of a look.

Whole map THEMEs could be devised for everything from the MAP layers all 
the way out to how the html page itself could look.  The Map description 
chunk would just end up being a component of a whole PAGE view for example.

Once a "nice" looking map (THEME) has been built, these should be 
exportable as THEMES that can be used by anyone, either as a starting 
point or as is.  It would certainly be a nice way to maintain a look and 
feel across many services for an organization.

There's no reason the Online version of something like this would need 
to be relegated to just the MapService Config, it could be augmented to 
handle the whole styling of a ([D]HTML) page, even a Site, we do quite a 
bit of add hock Reporting through Mapservers TEXT output features for 
example, styling a data TABLE in HTML would be a big plus.

:c)

bobb

Dean Gadoury wrote:

>I don't think there is any relationship between ugly maps and editing 
>tools. You can produce an ugly map just as easily with the best WYSIWYG 
>tool as with a text editor. You can also produce a beautiful map with 
>either. As long as the styling parameters that are available in 
>MapServer are preserved it should be fine to use either. That said, I 
>would hate to see us ever lose the text file based map file because for 
>the experienced user it can still be the fastest and most comfortable 
>editing environment.
>Dean
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>Flavio Hendry wrote:
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>
>>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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