[ka-Map-users] Architectural questions.

[The Bun]

On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 08:19:14AM -0800, The Bun wrote:

>> I have few architectural questions. Mainly, is regarding kaMap and
>> OpenLayers, they both seems to be client-side ajax package right? Plus
>> kamap
>> has some PHP back end for tiling while OL has something called TileCache,
>> right?

>TileCache is a seperate software package which can be used, not
>explicitly tied to OpenLayers. (Users have used it with WorldWind and
>other similar code in the past.)

>ka-Map is clientside code which is primarily designed to talk to its
>server side API and configuration, in tile.php / config.php . 
>
>OpenLayers can talk to the tile.php part of ka-Map via its KaMap layer. 

OK I assume I need to read more about tilecache and OpenLayers, time
allowing.
I understood ( but please tell me if I am wrong ) that kaMap has a server
side part 
and this is tile.php/config.php while OL hasn't a server part and then need
rely on
something which may be tilecache or kaMap ( the server side ) , right?

>> On the other side I see that from OL you can actually working with
>> kaMap layers ( although I couldn't test it), I really don't understand
>> what
>> is the utility for doing that.

>So that if you already have a working ka-Map cache, you can use that
>instead of creating a new one.

Are we talking about using the server side of kaMap, are we? 

>> On this forum I read that kamappers developers are going to implement OL
>> in
>> kaMap.
>> 
>> I am struggling to understand what are the essential pieces of the puzzle
>> I
>> need and what I have to expect for the future, seems that many people who
>> has used kaMap are going for a mixed solution or a full solution with OL
>> and
>> TileCache.

>Okay. Here's one way to look at it.
>
>Currently:
>
>   Tile Backends                             
> 
>     tile.php  < - - - - <-- ka-map  - - - > User interface,       
>                     \                       Searching interface, etc. 
>    TileCache    <--  \ OpenLayers
>                      /
>     Others  < - - - -
>
>In the future:
>     
>     tile.php  < - -         
>                     \ OpenLayers <-- ka-map  - - - > User interface, 
>                     /                               Searching interface,
> etc. 
>    TileCache  < - - 
>
>That is:
>
>Currently, ka-Map talks directly to tile.php, and for the most part,
>only tile.php. OpenLayers talks to many different tile sources.
>
>ka-Map provides a query interface, user interface, etc. while OpenLayers
>is primarily a tile loading library.
>
>In the future, instead of ka-Map implementing the tile drawing code, it
>could use OpenLayers to draw the tiles, and still maintain its own code
>to do the user interface, searching against MapServer, etc.

Is the OpenLayers map drawing better of the one already implemented in
kaMap?
If it is not good enough like OL, at this stage, is it not better to try to
improve kaMap instead of adding an extra layer? 

This make me quite confused. I appreciate the "future" architecture, with
kaMap that integrate OL but I am also concerned about it "now". It seems
that currently your second scenario:

TileCache <-- OpenLayers

is better than the first but the first scenario:

Tile.php <-- kaMap

is better for the future scenario:

Tile.php <-- OpenLayers <-- kaMap

as it seems to me that the second scenario doesn't give you an easy U-turn
chance while the first scenario will evolve naturally but it is still a
Future Scenario, if you know what I mean.

>This is the route that MapBuilder has taken, using OWS-Context for
>configuration, creating a UI on top of OpenLayers using XML as a
>description language.

This makes my choice still more complicated, then we have another scenario?

Server <-- OpenLayers <-- MapBuilder


>Regards,
>-- 
>Christopher Schmidt
>Web Developer
>_______________________________________________
>ka-Map-users mailing list
>ka-Map-users at lists.maptools.org
>http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/ka-map-users


Kind Regards
Rosario Carbone
-- 
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Architectural-questions.-tf4759229.html#a13625550
Sent from the ka-map-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.