New MapServer Demo (feedback requested)

[Pericles S. Nacionales]

Steve,

My $0.02...  a good tutorial should provide installation 
instructions--how to get MapServer working on different platforms.  But 
this alone can be very complicated as there are various things to 
consider within each platform.  In Windows, for example, you can write 
something for MS4W (which is simple as MS4W itself is configured to work 
right of the box), for Apache, and for IIS.  In Linux, there's FGS and 
other packages to consider but there are also differences in different 
distributions.  You can write a generic installation instructions but 
that generally make sense only to people who are familiar with their 
particular system.  Many new users might still have a hard time 
following through that instructions.

I think what we've been doing in terms of examples (in workshops) is 
good--separate map files, HTML templates, other client interface 
examples, and related technologies.  Beyond that, I think we can provide 
links to other tutorials/demo from these other packages.  You can also 
provide examples of your strategies in optimizing MapServer performance, 
how to use different data connection types (PostGIS/Oracle, WxS, etc.), 
and the other supported OGC specifications supported in MapServer.

As for demo data, that's a tough one.  Maybe you can have different 
levels of data quality--small scale vector and raster data (maybe 
country boundaries and MODIS raster), medium scale (i.e. a 
state/province or a small country) with good highways and political 
boundaries, and large scale data (cadastral data, but where would you 
get example you can make available publicly?).  Having these levels 
should provide good coverage of MapServer's capabilities.  Or make it 
simple enough so that anyone can plug in their own data and work with it.

I guess if you cover all these, you have yourself a book.  Let me know 
how I can help.

-Perry

Steve Lime wrote:
> Hi all: I've got some time to put together a new demo for MapServer and would to get feedback from
> the community on what it should look like. Currently there are a number of options out there but none
> of them are very comprehensive. Demos that I know about include:
>
>   - the Itasca demo application (came out of the MUM1 meeting): http://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/mapserver_demos/workshop-5.0/
>   - Perry Nacionales' MapServer tutorial: http://biometry.gis.umn.edu/tutorial/
>   - Mobile Geographics' MapServer Recipies: http://www.mobilegeographics.com/mapserver/
>   - MN DNR MapServer Test Suite: http://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/mapserver_demos/tests46/
>   - Various MS4W packages: http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml 
>
> There are of course lots of questions:
>
>   - should a demo be installable, hosted or both
>   - what data should it use
>   - should it cover just MapServer configuration (e.g. mapfiles)
>   - should it cover installation as well or should that be left to how-to's
>   - what relationship to other packages (e.g. OpenLayers, TileCache, Ka-map) should be demo'd
>
> Any feedback would be much appreciated. 
>
> Steve
>   
>