[OpenLayers-Users] Switching a layer between tiled and untiled behaviour

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 09:53:09PM +0000, Jon Blower wrote:
> Hi Christopher,
> 
> My reason for wanting to switch a layer between tiled and untiled
> behaviour is as follows.  I'm displaying dynamically-generated images
> of ocean forecast data and normally I want to display this in tiles
> for efficiency (in future I'll have a tile cache of some sort).
> However, I also want to display animations (my WMS supports output in
> animated GIF format).  This cannot be done in tiles because each tile
> would be a separate animation and hence they would not be mutually
> synchronized on the map.  In this case I need to use an untiled layer
> and have a single animated GIF that covers the whole viewport (and
> possibly beyond).
> 
> The obvious way to do this would be to have two layers and switch
> between them automatically as required.  However, I don't want to show
> both the tiled and untiled layers in the LayerSwitcher control: I just
> want to show the active layer (to give the illusion that there is only
> one layer, exhibiting both behaviours).  I suppose I can call
> map.addLayer() and map.removeLayer() when I switch between them.
> 
> It would be useful to be able to switch behaviours but I can see this
> might be tricky.

An interesting and valid use case. Thanks for the explanation.

However, what I said here is still true, and means that the solution you
proposed is probably the best. 

> >However, a WMS Untiled layer is no different than any other layer
> >(WorldWind, Ka-Map, etc.) -- there is no inherent connection between a
> >layer and its untiled cousin, so the answer is, as you suspected, 'no'.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta