[ka-Map-users] Hello from the Mapbuilder project

[Paul Spencer]

Hey Cameron,

Mike Adair gave me a run-through of MapBuilder a while ago but I never 
really followed up on it (meant to, but, you know how it is ;))

Design goals ... um ... what are those? :>  This was initially built as 
an experiment in javascript, dhtml and AJAX and grew into something we 
felt pretty decent about from a performance/usability point of view. 
The original design goal, then, was to produce something that took 
maximum advantage of the natural advantage that the DOM and properly 
structured HTML/CSS can provide for performance.  The source released 
today is pretty much that initial effort and I think it reflects the 
lack of any real forethought.  The whole thing is more or less a toy 
application since it doesn't do anything useful.

The newer version that will be available in cvs in the next day or two 
has the same code encapsulated as a javascript object library with the 
intention to expose an API to HTML/JavaScript developers that want to 
embed this technology.  I am attempting to abstract the core rendering 
engine (tiling) from the tools that do stuff like navigation by using a 
custom event mechanism that links the tools together.  And I hope to 
incorporate other mechanisms like querying and location-based services too.

Also, I would like to position ka-Map to be embeddable in other 
technologies like Chameleon, GeoServer etc if that makes sense.

I'm not entirely sure how well this technology would work for MapBuilder 
since it relies on some sort of tile caching for performance.  OGC 
protocols are not particularly known for performance, and adding an 
additional requirement for requesting separate tiles would be a killer 
in my mind.  I think it is more likely that ka-Map will benefit from the 
things you guys have been doing.

I hope that other developers (like you :)) will take a look and perhaps 
find something useful or contribute changes back.

I am also hoping that the community will provide feedback and push this 
in the direction that it really needs to go.  Without firm plans for its 
future, it may die ... but I think there is enough interest in this type 
of technology that it will find a place in the open source community.

And it has a cool logo!

Cheers

Paul


Shorter, Cameron wrote:
> Hello Ka-map people,
> Chris Holmes has suggested that Mapbuilder http://mapbuilder.sf.net and
> ka-map should look at similarities between projects and see where we can
> share libraries.
> 
> Mapbuilder is a WMS/WFS-T/WMC client which is written almost entirely in
> Javascript and XSL, so it runs inside a browser.  Like ka-map, we only go
> back to the server to refresh basemaps or get extra data.
> 
> I'm interested to know:
> 1. What are your design goals?
> 2. Are you interested in working toward a common solution?
> 
> Cameron Shorter
> Software and Process Improvement Engineer, Electronic Systems,
> ADI Limited,
> 4 Talavera Road,
> North Ryde, NSW, 2113, Australia.
> Ph: 61 2 9325 1719
> Fx: 61 2 9325 1590
> Mb: +61 (0)419 142254
> www.adi-limited.com
> 
> 
> DISCLAIMER:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This Email may contain confidential and/or privileged information and is intended 
> solely for the addressee(s) named. If you have received this information in error, or
> are advised that you have been posted this Email by accident, please notify the 
> sender by return Email, do not redistribute it, delete the Email and keep no copies.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> ka-Map-users mailing list
> ka-Map-users at lists.maptools.org
> http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/ka-map-users
> 

-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|Paul Spencer                           pspencer at dmsolutions.ca   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|Applications & Software Development                              |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+