[OpenLayers-Dev] OpenLayers & SVG Web

Sean Gillies sean.gillies at gmail.com
Thu Dec 10 07:19:54 EST 2009 

Hi Jonathan,

I'm intrigued by your svgweb renderer. It looks useful to me in a  
project where I already possess nicely styled non-geographic layers of  
lines and text annotations as SVG, but don't want to reinvent the  
background image layer machinery and navigation and layer switching  
controls provided by OpenLayers.

As you state in the table, multiple layers aren't working with flash  
forced. What's the problem with multiple layers?

Regards,
Sean

On Dec 4, 2009, at 12:46 AM, Jonathan Pasquier wrote:

> Hi Tim,
>
> I understand your point, I was just thinking that if it were  
> possible to use a unique renderer across all platforms, it would  
> greatly simplify maintenance and it would make it easier to add new  
> feature.
> Well, it might happen one day, around 2020, when all browsers will  
> implement the same standard for vector drawing :-)
>
> About the features that I would like to see added in OpenLayers...
> Well, you make me feel like a little child writing his letter to  
> Father Christmas :-)
>
> I think it would be really nice to add an easy API to manipulate  
> features.
> For instance it would be great to be able to assign arbitrary id or  
> classes to a feature and then retrieve features using that id or  
> class (a bit like what we can do with DOM node)
>
> It would also be great to have an easy way of setting individual  
> properties of features.
> For instance, I could have a point feature that inherit its style  
> from the layer style, but with a thicker border (in this case, I  
> would like to be able to just set the stroke width ). This would  
> behave a bit like CSS inheritance.
>
> Talking about features, there are also a couple of things that I  
> think could be really great:
>
> It could be great also to add a state to the feature, to indicate  
> weather a feature is selected or not. At the moment, if you want to  
> know if a specific feature is selected, you have to loop through the  
> selected features of the vector layers and check whether it is in it  
> or not.
> The renderer could then use this information to decide which style  
> to apply to the feature before drawing it.
> This, coupled with some methods to select features on a vector  
> layer, would make it really easy to programmaticaly select features  
> (at the moment you have to use the SelectControl to do it).
>
> Finally it would be great to have an API to animate features (or  
> better said, to animate properties of feature, like radius, fill  
> color, etc...).
>
> Well, at the end this has more of a wish-list than a simple mail :-)
> I would be happy to collaborate to get any of these features  
> implemented in OpenLayers.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jonathan
>
> 2009/12/2 Tim Schaub <tschaub at opengeo.org>
> Hey-
>
> Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > ----- Forwarded message from Jonathan Pasquier -----
> >
> > Hello Chris,
> >
> > I know that OpenLayers has support for vector drawing in all the  
> browsers,
> > I have used a lot this feature and it's working really well.
> >
> > What I wanted to do was just to experiment with SVG Web as well as  
> get an
> > insight on the internals of OpenLayers.
> > As you can see on my webpage, the port of svg web to openlayers is  
> not
> > really usable at the moment (missing features + speed issue).
> >
> > I know that introducing a dependency upon an external library is  
> not really
> > great, but it could be nice to have a full SVG support across all  
> browsers.
> > This could allow us to use specific SVG features (SMIL, filters,  
> etc..) or
> > to use SVG art on openlayers maps.
> >
> > What do you think about it?
> >
>
> My opinion is that we'll be better off enhancing what we have.  If  
> there
> are SVG features that can be implemented in multiple browsers, then we
> should be able to do this in our current renderers (and we can
> cherry-pick any cross-browser implementation stuff that is appropriate
> from SVG Web).
>
> It would help to center this discussion around specific features.   
> Since
> it makes sense from an OpenLayers perspective to talk about rendering
> features with symbolizers, what specific features would you like to  
> see
> added (not in SVG speak but in OpenLayers speak)?
>
> Tim
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
> > 2009/11/30 Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com>
> >
> >> On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 03:06:24PM +0100, Jonathan Pasquier wrote:
> >>> Hello,
> >>>
> >>> I have been doing some experiment with OpenLayers recently, and
> >> especially
> >>> with the Vector feature.
> >>> After seeing the recent announcement of a new release of SVG
> >>> web<http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/>,
> >>> a js library which aims to provide suport for SVG to all browser,
> >>> I have decided to try to integrate it with OpenLayers so I could  
> use my
> >>> beloved SVG under any browser (including IE!!!)
> >> OpenLayers already has support for vectors in all browsers,  
> including IE.
> >> No use of an external library is neccesary.
> >>
> >> What were you trying to accomplish using svgweb?
> >>
> >> -- Chris
> >>
> >>> After a couple of days fighting against the DOM, javascript and  
> flash, I
> >>> have finally manage to get something usable.
> >>>
> >>> It still in alpha stage, but if you want you can give it a try.
> >>>
> >>> Source and examples are available here:
> >>> http://www.bordel-de-nerd.net/olsvgweb/
> >>>
> >>> I have only tested it under Firefox 3.5 and IE 8, but it should  
> work with
> >>> other browsers as well.
> >>>
> >>> Any comment or suggestion will be welcome!
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>>
> >>> Jonathan
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Dev mailing list
> >>> Dev at openlayers.org
> >>> http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
> >>
> >> --
> >> Christopher Schmidt
> >> MetaCarta
> >>
> >
> > ----- End forwarded message -----
> >
>
>
> --
> Tim Schaub
> OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
> Expert service straight from the developers.
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--
Sean

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