[ka-Map-users] Architectural questions.

[Paul Spencer]

On 8-Nov-07, at 9:51 AM, The Bun wrote:
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> I followed your suggestion and started to test OpenLayers. First  
> thing I
> noticed was that there is no much documentation around, but this is a
> problem of all open sources and you need a lot of time to make your  
> code
> running, fortunately at this stage I have some time for experiment  
> so..... I
> also have been quite lucky as I could test my main base map  
> (MapServer map)
> with OL that talks directly to MapServer via WMS, I didn't try with  
> the CGI
> directly but I'll do.
>
> In your opinion, or anybody opinion, this is an open discussion,  
> what are
> the advantages of using
> OpenLayers.Layer.MapServer instead of OpenLayers.Layer.WMS?
>
> My first impression with OL anyway is that seems quite slow and quite
> difficult to use as well. I also want to test with the interface of  
> kaMap or
> TileCache and check how much the performances will improve.
>
> Finally, I am not pretty sure I am going to the decide for OpenLayers,
> because, and it is my impression, it seems to be aestetically very  
> nice and
> with a rich API but more difficult to use and a bit unstable I may  
> prefer
> carrying on with kaMap nevertheless the limitation of the API which
> potentially can be improved.
> What is your opinion?
>
> Regards
> Rosario

Rosario,

there is a substantial, and growing, set of documentation for  
OpenLayers so I am surprised by your statement that there is not much  
around.  There is also a substantial set of examples, and an active  
user community that is very responsive.

I would highly recommend using a tile source that provides caching -  
using either ka-Map's tile.php or TileCache.  If you are only getting  
tiles from MapServer then WMS doesn't provide any advantage and both  
will be relatively slow.

I would be quite surprised if OpenLayers were significantly slower  
(if not faster) than any equivalent.  It is possible, because of the  
amount of code and the architecture, that OL is slightly slower at  
some things than ka-Map might be.

Cheers

Paul

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|Paul Spencer                          pspencer at dmsolutions.ca    |
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|Chief Technology Officer                                         |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                http://www.dmsolutions.ca/ |
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