[ka-Map-users] Future of ka-map?

[Samuel Hiatt]

Hello kaMappers!

I figured I'd chime in on this very interesting subject as the future of
kaMap will greatly influence the direction of my project's development
(which will hopefully take a great leap forward this next year!).

Yeah, there are enough people using kaMap as a fairly stable product and it
does what it does pretty well.  That is, it provides server side tile
caching along with an ajax API and sample interfaces all packaged together
in one simple box.  I started using kaMap a bit less than a year ago, I
think, and I remember it was a relatively quick way to get some data
browsable online.

I was also very excited when I read that thread from a couple months ago
about the kaMap/OpenLayers merge.  I think the kaMap js widgets could make a
great addition to the OpenLayers toolkit, and would make kaMap a much more
versatile product.  The advantage of its ease of use out-of-the-box could be
preserved by also providing tile caching and map configuration components of
kaMap as a separate product>  So maybe there'd be a kaMap-TileCache
(php-mapsript) package as well as a kaMap-MapWidgets (js) package.

I am developing an application for spatio-temporal raster visualization and
will need to make some widgets that can handle my nD layers, and when I do I
think it'd be more appropriate and relevant for me to share those
developments within a context that was more clearly separated from the
server-side tile caching/rendering tasks.

I'm very interested to see where this discussion leads.  I'd like to see
what everyone thinks of how we might best integrate kaMap with OpenLayers
and then how we should handle the rest of kaMap.

Hope y'all have happy holidays!

Sam



On Dec 26, 2007 7:57 AM, Stephen Woodbridge <woodbri at swoodbridge.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I think that the primary development effort has moved over to
> OpenLayers.org This is a Javascript Web 2 library that has a very active
> development, it supports tiled mapping like ka-map, but support many
> more tile data providers. You can continue to use the tile.php to
> provide your tiles. I also has a very active development community.
>
> While it is my believe that ka-map will continue to be around for a
> while and developers will support it, you are unlikely to see any/much
> major development of this code base.
>
> I would strongly recommend that you review OpenLayers and if you do not
> find it a good fit, then post a message to the OpenLayers list. Many of
> us that started on ka-map have migrated our applications and have been
> very happy with the support we have gotten from the list and the rich
> features that have been made available in OpenLayers.
>
> Of course there is no reason to move a complete running application
> unless you are looking at doing some additional major development, then
> you need to weigh the cost of migrating and developing in the new
> environment vs just continuing in the ka-map environment. This was an
> easy decision for most of us, and we moved to OpenLayers, but only you
> know the specifics of your situation.
>
> Best regards,
>   -Stephen Woodbridge
>
> Alessio Di Lorenzo wrote:
> > Hi Roman,
> >
> > I share your own worries about the developing of new ka-map versions
> > (and interfaces). While similar project (but, imho, less
> > interesting...), like pmapper, are continuing to release new versions,
> > ka-map appear to be freezed to the 1.0 by months...
> >
> > I'm quite sure there's a good reason. Ka-map is for me, actually, the
> > best mapserver php-mapscript framework. Fore example, nore of the other
> > frameworks I saw, even if using ajax, offers to the users the
> > possibility to navigate a map "continuosly" like in google maps (open
> > layers gives this possibility... but ol is another thing...) and it is a
> > very appreciated possibility by the end-users. I know it for sure...
> >
> > Some months ago I read something about the idea to merge OL and Ka-map,
> > but at the moment I have no new information about (my fault). In the
> > last days I read also something about the integration of routing
> > functionalities thanks to pgroute, but I don't know if this could be
> > related with the releasing of new ka-map versions.
> >
> > Alessio
> >
> >
> >
> > Roman Meier ha scritto:
> >> Hi list
> >>
> >> I developed a prototype based on ka-map about one year ago. At that
> >> time I was
> >> very much convinced that ka-map is a great product with a great
> >> future. I'm not
> >> that sure again.
> >>
> >> A few days ago I did some research on ka-map and I'm a little bit
> >> worried about
> >> the future of ka-map. It seams, that ka-map is not developed again.
> Since
> >> almost one year we still have the same first release. I also found
> >> some info
> >> about the merge of openlayers and ka-map.
> >>
> >> Some days ago, a client asked me, if I could do some changes to the
> >> prototype I
> >> developed. Before I do that, I must know, if the ka-map project has
> >> come to an
> >> end or not. Should I better switch to another similar project?
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance for your opinion!
> >>
> >> Roman
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> ka-Map-users at lists.maptools.org
> >> http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/ka-map-users
> >>
> >>
> >
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>
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