[OpenLayers-Users] Print or export

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 02:10:54PM -0400, Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
> Yves Moisan wrote:
> >> I am not advocating violating Goggle TOS, but it seems that the end user 
> >> always has the ability to use something like SnagIt or PrintScrn or 
> >> ctrl-PrintScrn to capture their screen image and then paste that into 
> >> another document and print from there.
> > 
> > I guess that works for the odd one-off printscreen job but if you are
> > incorporating maps in a report (via some report generating software like
> > Jasper reports and such) then you're left high and dry.  
> > 
> > I long the day when there is a complete OSM/OAM coverage ;-)
> > 
> > Yves
> > 
> > 
> Absolutely! There is a separation of technical implement and 
> legal/restricted use issues. Technically, it would be nice to see a good 
> general solution printing OpenLayers. I think one of the big issues is 
> the OpenLayers is a client side application and unless the browsers 
> support printing of multiple transparent layers, then you have to move 
> the solution to the server side.
> 
> Since OpenLayers uses multiple "image providers", and can compose a map 
> based on many layers from different providers, this greatly complicates 
> the problem. You need something like the ability for OpenLayers to send 
> an xml description of the map being viewed to a server application that 
> can then request all the same information being displayed on the map and 
>   compose an equivalent image, that can then be return and printed. Or 
> something along those lines. And some layers would have to be excluded, 
> because of TOS issues, thinking of Google for one.
> 
> But alas, this does not exist as far as I know.

How is this different than the MapFish printing module?

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta