First-time user needs help with mapfile

[Jacob Delfos]

Keerati,

A few things I spotted (which may not necessarily be all problems) :

- Your mapfile should have an output format:

OUTPUTFORMAT
  NAME png
  DRIVER "GD/PNG"
  MIMETYPE "image/png"
  IMAGEMODE PC256
  EXTENSION "png"
END

If you don't have it, it may still work, but it will use the default format.

- Your layer must have a class. This defines what it looks like. Without it, it will definitely not show anything:

CLASS
NAME "countries" # this must be there to show it in the legend
COLOR 255 255 180 # the fill colour
OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0 # the boundary colour
END

- last thing: better not put spaces in your filenames. It may work, but I could well imagine if it didn't.

Try these and see what happens.

regards,

Jacob


-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of Keerati Inochanon
Sent: 20 January 2005 11:06
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] First-time user needs help with mapfile


Hi,
I'm new at GIS and mapserver, and just decided to try it out. I was
wondering if someone could guide me into the right direction. I
downloaded world base map shapefiles from esri website. I wrote a
mapfile for it, and tried to have mapscript render it, but it does not
work (image produced, but only background). Here is what my map file
looks like:

MAP
    NAME ASIA
    STATUS ON
    SIZE 800 500
    IMAGETYPE PNG
    IMAGECOLOR 240 240 240
    SHAPEPATH "C:\\Program Files\\Apache
Group\\Apache2\\htdocs\\mapserver\\testshp"
    EXTENT 90.0168 0.6079 113.5783 24.1694
    UNITS DD
    PROJECTION
                        "proj=latlong"
                        "ellps=GRS80"
                        "datum=NAD83"
    END
        LAYER
                NAME "boundaries"
                  TYPE POLYGON
                  STATUS ON
                  DATA "Country Boundaries 3"
                  PROJECTION
                          "proj=latlong"
                          "ellps=GRS80"
                          "datum=NAD83"
                  END
          END
END

I got the extent info from the download page of the dataset

These are the files in the testshp directory:
B_Major Cities 1.dbf
B_Major Cities 1.prj
B_Major Cities 1.shp
B_Major Cities 1.shx
Country Boundaries 3.dbf
Country Boundaries 3.prj
Country Boundaries 3.shp
Country Boundaries 3.shx
Rivers 2.dbf
Rivers 2.prj
Rivers 2.shp
Rivers 2.shx
Streets and Railroads 1.dbf
Streets and Railroads 1.prj
Streets and Railroads 1.shp
Streets and Railroads 1.shx
Water Bodies 2.dbf
Water Bodies 2.prj
Water Bodies 2.shp
Water Bodies 2.shx

Any help or suggestions will be much appreciated. Thank you very much!

Keerati



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