[OpenLayers-Users] WFS layers and triggering functions

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 07:02:13PM -0800, Matthew Doyle wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I'm new to the group so my apologies if this gets posted twice.
> 
> An OpenLayers implementation mentioned previously,  http://beta.whereis.com
> beta.whereis.com , have very similar functionality to what my client wishes
> to have. I am curious to know; can all the interactive functions be
> accomplished purely with OpenLayers? Or is it likely they have some other
> software components in the background being included as Layers? 

You'll need to be more specific to get a reasonable answer. 

> In particular I am interested in interacting with the WFS layers and
> triggering a function (opening a popup which allows you to link to
> another page) by clicking one of these features. 

http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/select-feature-openpopup.html

> Then more advanced, if possible; being able to click and drag
> (rectangle, circle or multi-sided polygon) to select a group of
> features from a WFS layer and interact with these.

Draw multiple polygons on:

http://crschmidt.net/mapping/wpserverdemo/

click the far left tool (select)

Hold down shift, click and drag a box around multiple features.

> We are seriously considering development in OpenLayers over other open
> source developments such as ka-map and MapGuide OS. 

MapGuide OS is multiple things: both a server side and a client side.
The 'new' webby frontend to MapGuide is Fusion, as I understand it, and
that's based on OpenLayers for mapping. For building a complex web
application from scratch, Fusion may not provide the tools you need; as
I understood it, it was designed to be a web map viewer rather than an
application development toolkit.

ka-Map has essentially stagnated in development as OpenLayers has grown;
As Paul Spencer pointed out, it has unfortunately been largely left
alone, with OpenLayers taking the spotlight: "As I said before, if a
project is to advance then it needs a  healthy community of users and
developers.  kaMap doesn't have a  healthy community of developers right
now, and so it is stagnant as a  project.  But it is a workable code
base that has some potential  advantages in the right situations.  A
couple of active developers  with some vision could take it and produce
a compelling solution." [1] 

Depending on the type of solution you're looking for, these tools may
help you. For building a complex web application, I think it's likely
that you'll want to get to the 'bare metal' of OpenLayers, and possibly
even below it.

> This community seems to
> be a very healthy and active one and that excites us. Hats off to the
> community!

Active and healthy aren't equivilant; I certainly never get enough
sleep. Too busy helping OpenLayers users.

> Also, as a ballpark approximation, how far off would the next milestone
> release (2.6) be?

Optimistically, a first RC will be one week from Friday. Realistically,
it will be before the end of February.

[1] http://lists.maptools.org/pipermail/ka-map-users/2008-February/003463.html

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta