[Chameleon] What does chameleon do?

[Paul Spencer]

Hi,

Julien responded with one option using existing widgets (The SQLQuery 
widget and the MapImageSharedResource widget) but this ends up with a 
non-navigable map.  A light-weight and interactive solution is to use a 
new build of MapServer with GDAL.  GDAL is the geospatial data access 
library used by MapServer for a lot of raster formats, it is bundled 
with OGR which is used for vector formats.  One of the recent additions 
to OGR is the ability to map an ODBC datasource with columns for point 
locations.

If you can get a recent build of mapserver with a recent (i.e. CVS) 
version of GDAL, then you can use this functionality.  To set it up, you 
need to do the following:

1. set up an ODBC DSN for your MySQL database
2. set up a virtual file for OGR, format is described at:

http://www.remotesensing.org/gdal/ogr/drv_vrt.html

3. set up a map file to use this virtual file ... it is simply a layer 
of type OGR with connection pointing at the virtual file and data with 
the name of the layer in the virtual file that you want to use (a 
virtual file can contain multiple layers).

That's it.  As this is pretty new functionality, it is not for the faint 
of heart.  There is quite a lot of development going on at the current 
time to provide simple utilities for doing the above steps (or most of 
them), but they won't be done for a few months.  If you really need it 
in the short term, roll up your sleeves and have a go :)  And let us 
know how it goes :)


Cheers,

Paul

Paul Spencer wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> don't have time to respond properly for a few days given the holidays, 
> but I don't think the SQLQuery widget will do what you want, but it 
> should be possible to do it with mapserver and ogr using virtual 
> datasources ... will discuss when I have time.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Paul
> 
> pxniw pxniw wrote:
> 
>> Thanks this cleared up things a bit.
>> Basically its copy and Paste type of environment
>> rather than swyg system. Ie if I want to add something
>> for the sample file, I would add "<CWC> some widget
>> here <CWC>" to sample html file.
>>
>> Ok going for more advanced stuff:
>> I noticed that Chameleon will handle MySQL?
>> Found this:
>> http://www.maptools.org/chameleon/wiki/SQLQuery
>>
>> Is this able to do this?
>>
>> I have php and perl scripts working for mapserver with
>> Chameleon and MapLab.
>> I also have some other data in MySQL database.
>> Tables have info like: RestaurantName;City;Lat;Lon
>>
>> How do I query either in PHP or Perl RestaurantName
>> and provide a Pin Label (Marker) for Lat Lon
>> coordinates on my existing mapserver layout for single
>> restaurant?
>>
>> Ie: I have a map of Georgia displayed. User have
>> options to type city in text box (ie Atlanta), and hit
>> Go button.
>>
>> How do I query the MySQL db and show restaurant
>> locations in existing map?
>>
>> Thank You for all of who have provided their time for
>> these projects, I will try to do the same, once I
>> learn things a bit more.
>> Happy Holidays
>>
>>
>> --- Bart van den Eijnden <bartvde@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> basically Chameleon is being fed a HTML template
>>> with special tags in it, you can recognize them by "CWC". A zoom-in 
>>> tool for
>>> instance is a widget and is recognized by the CWC in the HTML template.
>>> The basic unit of Chameleon is the widget, the HTML template is a
>>> collection of widgets.
>>>
>>> Chameleon interprets this template and creates HTML
>>> and javascript, which will turn into a full-featured web mapping client.
>>>
>>> Also, it needs to know which map layers to draw,
>>> that's the second configuration element, so always a Mapserver MAP
>>> file which you can create with Maplab if you want (or a Web Map Context
>>> document, but this is harder), is needed.
>>>
>>> In the index.phtml of your sample application both
>>> the HTML template and the MAP file are linked. This is specific for
>>> Chameleon 1.1 and was different in Chameleon 1.0 (which had a service
>>> instance which interpreted templates instead of one application per HTML
>>> template/MAP file combination).
>>>
>>> In short you could say Chameleon is the toolkit to
>>> easily build webmapping clients, which could be configured by someone 
>>> who
>>> knows HTML.
>>>
>>> You can see an example at:
>>>
>>> http://mapsherpa.dmsolutions.ca/hawaii2/
>>>
>>> Hope this helps.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Bart
>>>
>>> On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 07:33:24 -0800 (PST), pxniw
>>> pxniw <pxniw69@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Just downloaded and installed chameleon. (1.1
>>>
>>>
>>> Alpha 6)
>>>
>>>> Its so confusing what is the demo/sample file?
>>>> (I could not find cwc2.php on my files , I think
>>>
>>>
>>> its
>>>
>>>> in the old files) I downloaded files from
>>>>
>>>
>> http://www.maptools.org/chameleon/index.phtml?page=home.html
>>
>>>> and see other site
>>>> http://www.dmsolutions.ca/techserv/chameleon.html
>>>>
>>>> this is getting more confusing.
>>>> Installed
>>>> http://www.maptools.org/dl/chameleon-sample.zip
>>>
>>>
>>> and it
>>>
>>>> works, after few changes in paths.
>>>>
>>>> I tried and understand maplab ok.
>>>>
>>>> How do I use chameleon? Is there a screenshot
>>>> somewhere, so I could see what it is used for? (My
>>>> understanding it has all these widgets, but where,
>>>
>>>
>>> and
>>>
>>>> how do I use them... copy and paste the code? I
>>>
>>>
>>> think
>>>
>>>> I am missing something major here. Im completely
>>>
>>>
>>> nubie
>>>
>>>> so explain with that in mind.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
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>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Chameleon mailing list
>>>> Chameleon@lists.maptools.org
>>>>
>>>
>>> http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/chameleon
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>>  
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________
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>>
> 

-- 
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|Paul Spencer                           spencer@dmsolutions.ca    |
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|Applications & Software Development                              |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/|
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