[mapserver-users] Fwd: Hiding Layers in OGC Web Services ¶

[TC Haddad]

Tried sending this to the Dev list this morning, but it doesn't seem
to have made it.

TH

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:57 AM
Subject: Hiding Layers in OGC Web Services ¶
To: mapserver-dev at lists.osgeo.org


Hi all,

Hope it's appropriate to post this question here. I was just wondering
about the status of the issue described here:

http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/wiki/HidingLayersInOGCWebServices

Recently I revisited this issue and dusted off an old WMS manual that
seemed to have the elements of the solution I desired. Perhaps I am
being overly optimistic, but I thought I should ask if this approach
has already been considered, or how it could be used via MapServer.

Specifically, I am interested in being able to serve a group of layers
(say a base map composed of many layers with nice cartography) and
have that group only visible in my GetCapabilities as a single entry.
I don not want my users to be able to look inside my base map group
and request the individual component layers (like roads, streams,
etc).

>From this old WMS manual I have, it seems this should be possible
using different combinations of the Layer Name and Title elements in
GetCapabilities. here is the relevant quote:

"A Map Server which advertises a Layer containing a Name element MUST
be able to accept that Name as the value of LAYERS argument in a
GetMap request and return the corresponding map. A viewer Client MUST
NOT attempt to request a Layer that has a Title but no Name."

So from this it looks like the behavior I want would be possible if I
could somehow get MapServer to allow me to advertise a Name and Title
for my basemap group, but only a Title (and no Name) element for the
Layers inside that group.

Hope I am making sense here. I can tell a lot of people have looked at
this, so I'm not sure this is a helpful additional perspective, but I
just had to ask!

Tanya