new mapserver site for Central America; thanks for all the help!;

[Emilio Mayorga]

Hi Gail,

Thank you. Regarding the "transition effect", I'm not sure what you're
referring to. My only guess is that you're using IE. I've noticed that
it loads the image gradually with a funky transition. It's nothing
special I'm doing, I suspect it has to do with how IE loads PNG24
images (the ouptut format I'm using).

The Layers section with expandable folders is based on the Tree
javascript API, which you can get at this site:
http://www.destroydrop.com/javascripts/tree/
The version I'm using is old and less clean than the current version.
I originally saw it in the Red River Basin site:
http://www.rrbdin.org/tools/mapviewer/basinviewer.htm
then adapted it for our site (where, for example, I don't use a
separate frame). It's definitely not a "plug and play" kind of thing,
but if you're very comfortable with javascript, you should be able to
figure out the bulk of it. Feel free to ask me about specific elements
once you've had a broader look; the integration with the Landview
DHTML framework (http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/gallery/landview) can be
tricky. Basically, you build javascript arrays with the layer & folder
long names, status, folder hierarchy, and the layer names used in your
.map file. The core javascript code is in tree3.js, but it interacts
with the main HTML page (which is loaded from a wrapper frame -- see
the HTML structure) and with my main customized js file
mapache_lib.js.

Unfortunately, I don't remember seeing any documentation on the
Mapserver site about this tool. But there are plenty of sites out
there that do something similar. For example, I *believe* Chameleon
(http://chameleon.maptools.org/) has default tools that work that way.

I hope this helps to get you started! I don't have full,
self-contained documentation myself, sorry.

-Emilio


On 3/13/06, Gail Millin <Gail.Millin at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Hi Emilio,
>
> I have looked at the website you have developed and would be interested to
> know how you produced the Layer element of the page with the expandable
> folders? I really like this approach of organizing the data to present. I
> would appreciate any hints on the code you used to achieve this or the
> specific area of the MapServer website where instructions are given to
> produce a table of contents like this.
>
> Also how did you produce the transition effect just prior to the map being
> loaded to being viewed on the screen, I thought this was a nice touch!
>
> I really enjoyed viewing your website.
>
> Kind Regards
>
> Gail
>
> Gail Millin
>
> Geodata Interoperability Support Officer
> The University of Manchester
> Kilburn Building
> Oxford Road
> M13 9PL
>
> Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 0581
>
> E-mail: Gail.Millin at manchester.ac.uk
>
> Website: http://www.landmap.ac.uk