I wonder if a demo really becomes a series of how-to's, some of which already exist. Those that require data would could be developed against a common dataset.
Steve >>> On 1/3/2008 at 2:27 PM, in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Pericles S. Nacionales" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Steve, > > My $0.02... a good tutorial should provide installation > instructions--how to get MapServer working on different platforms. But > this alone can be very complicated as there are various things to > consider within each platform. In Windows, for example, you can write > something for MS4W (which is simple as MS4W itself is configured to work > right of the box), for Apache, and for IIS. In Linux, there's FGS and > other packages to consider but there are also differences in different > distributions. You can write a generic installation instructions but > that generally make sense only to people who are familiar with their > particular system. Many new users might still have a hard time > following through that instructions. > > I think what we've been doing in terms of examples (in workshops) is > good--separate map files, HTML templates, other client interface > examples, and related technologies. Beyond that, I think we can provide > links to other tutorials/demo from these other packages. You can also > provide examples of your strategies in optimizing MapServer performance, > how to use different data connection types (PostGIS/Oracle, WxS, etc.), > and the other supported OGC specifications supported in MapServer. > > As for demo data, that's a tough one. Maybe you can have different > levels of data quality--small scale vector and raster data (maybe > country boundaries and MODIS raster), medium scale (i.e. a > state/province or a small country) with good highways and political > boundaries, and large scale data (cadastral data, but where would you > get example you can make available publicly?). Having these levels > should provide good coverage of MapServer's capabilities. Or make it > simple enough so that anyone can plug in their own data and work with it. > > I guess if you cover all these, you have yourself a book. Let me know > how I can help. > > -Perry > > Steve Lime wrote: >> Hi all: I've got some time to put together a new demo for MapServer and > would to get feedback from >> the community on what it should look like. Currently there are a number of > options out there but none >> of them are very comprehensive. Demos that I know about include: >> >> - the Itasca demo application (came out of the MUM1 meeting): > http://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/mapserver_demos/workshop-5.0/ >> - Perry Nacionales' MapServer tutorial: > http://biometry.gis.umn.edu/tutorial/ >> - Mobile Geographics' MapServer Recipies: > http://www.mobilegeographics.com/mapserver/ >> - MN DNR MapServer Test Suite: > http://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/mapserver_demos/tests46/ >> - Various MS4W packages: http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml >> >> There are of course lots of questions: >> >> - should a demo be installable, hosted or both >> - what data should it use >> - should it cover just MapServer configuration (e.g. mapfiles) >> - should it cover installation as well or should that be left to how-to's >> - what relationship to other packages (e.g. OpenLayers, TileCache, Ka-map) > should be demo'd >> >> Any feedback would be much appreciated. >> >> Steve >> >>
