Yeah, that would be a very good approach. Others can help out if we
provide a list of what demos are needed or could use updates/improvements.
-Perry
Steve Lime wrote:
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
