[mapserver-users] Newbie feedback

[Paul Ramsey]

Lars,

Thanks for the great notes! This kind of "first blush" feedback is
hugely useful, since users are by definition only new to a piece of
software once -- this kind of knowledge is lost almost immediately.

P.

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 12:26 AM, Lars
Westerlind<lars.westerlind at enera.se> wrote:
> Newbie feedback
>
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> we newly installed Mapserver as ms4w installation on windows; and we are
> very satisfied.
>
> We got up and running very fast, even though we are not fluent in the
> techniques
>
> used (in Partiucar, Apache webserver). However, I want to share a few small
> points that caused
>
> unnecessary problems.
>
>
>
> 1. A suggestion where in the directory structure to put the mapfiles would
> be appreciated. If there are
>
> different meanings, give two or three scenarios. Also include the looks of
> the URL reference to the mapfile.
>
> 2. Why not enclose a small working example with one simplest possible
> mapfile and one shapefile set? And
>
> perhaps another more advanced mapfile with some common techniques exposed?
>
> 3. Font handling caused me much problems. As it is a windows installation,
> it could be at least a insall note / readme describing
>
> where to search for the .ttf files. The Mapserver documentation doesn't say
> anything about Windows, and in Windows you need not be very
>
> aware of where to find the font files, so it took some time to find out. It
> appears that the documentation is not very clear either;
>
> I hade to create a fontset file and refer to it to get it work; the
> documentation hints that font references could be written in the fontset
>
> clause, but I didn't manage.
>
> 4. The default font handling (bitmap) was confusing as it appears to be
> ascii based, where the
>
>  true type font appears to be Unicode/UTF-8 based. When doing the correct
> 'encoding', the output was silly until I managed to handel the
>
> true type fonts correctly.
>
> 5. I would suggest more examples in the documentation, especially around
> mapfile editing. In examles you
>
> would also get punctuation issues and such
>
>
>
> I think that was my most important points I think.
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
> Lars Westerlind
>
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