[mapserver-users] A Question of Group

[Bill Thoen]

Bob Basques wrote:
>
> As a matter of discussion, I went into using HTML legends early on, 
> and ran into similar problems as these, and after a few months I ended 
> up abandoning the use of them.  Also, I now use GeoMoose as my 
> preferred client side interface, which deals with each layer 
> separately, which is very conducive to building out layer specific 
> legends.  The PROs of using HTML legends were canceled out 
> essentially, by the organizational structure of how GeoMoose requests 
> it's resources.
>
I went to Plan B, which was to manually truncate the data structures to 
just a gid and then tile the layers with ogrtindex. I think the main 
problem with HTML Legend is that there's just not enough interest in it. 
By the time a MapServer developer discovers things like this that are on 
the edge of MapServer's development horizon, they're already moving into 
tools like Open Layers, GeoMoose and things like that with more user 
interface support. When I first asked about HTML Legends here last week 
it took three tries and an edgy subject line to get a response.

In my case I was happily building a pretty good tool in Open Layers, and 
the first thing a new client wanted was support for up to 100 layers, 
which is not do-able in OL because the layer switcher doesn't have a 
scrollbar and it maxes out when the list of layer reaches the bottom of 
the map window. It also has no grouping ability to treat a group of 
layers as a single layer, nor does it provide a expand/collapse feature, 
or show layer icons. Other than the grouping issue (which I think is not 
going to be as useful as the client thinks, even if I get it to work the 
way they want) HTML Legends cover a lot of ground with not a lot of code 
needed. Still, I think I should look at this GeoMoose some time. It 
sounds pretty good.