PleiadesOpenLayers

Wraps the OpenLayers javascript library and provides a "slippy" AJAX map for Plone.

Rather than embed an application that uses a proprietary javascript API (Google/Yahoo/Microsoft) into the Pleiades site, we prefer to use the open source alternative: OpenLayers. The primary advantages of OpenLayers are that we can use a basemap of our choice delivered via WMS, and that we can style the map elements with our own site CSS.

Installation and Usage

PleiadesOpenLayers depends on the PleiadesGeocoder product.

PleiadesOpenLayers requires Plone 2.5. You might be able to get it to work with Plone 2.1.x and Five > 1.3, but this is not officially supported.

See the ReadMe for installation notes.

How it Works

The product provides content types that model, in a limited fashion, an OpenLayers map and base map layers: MapContext and MapLayer.

Use the following values to get started with a simple physiographic map of the world:

map
---
Spatial Reference System:       EPSG:4326 (aka WGS 1984)  
Bounding Box:             -180 -90 180 90 (left, bottom, right, top in decimal degrees) 

  layer
  -----
  Online Resource URL: http://www2.demis.nl/mapserver/request.asp
  Styled Layer Names:    Bathymetry,Topography,Rivers,Waterbodies

MapContext doesn't yet offer a preview (there's a immediately interesting enhancement). To see what's up, you will need to request the ol_map_view of the folder that contains the map context. URL: folder/ol_map_view.

If the folder contains georeferenced content (see PleiadesGeocoder), the map will render it into a single layer in the map. Due to limitations imposed by Microsoft Internet Explorer, the number of mapped items is capped at 60.

Future Improvements

See Geo Control. A portal_maps tool could be very handy for discovering WMS services and the layers they offer. PrimaGIS has much of this functionality, and we aim to play well with that product.

Tickets

OpenLayers tickets

#110

allow reload of entity layer in ol_map_view

#147

make full-screen version of maps a toggleable option

#148

allow map navigation at entity view

#150

set maximum scale on map based on precision of underlying data

#151

label features in ol_maps

#152

disable popup title/description boxes on ol_maps in geoEntity skins

#153

use distinctive icons in entity context maps

#154

use distinctive icons for each entity type

#155

properly center icons of arbitrary pixel size

#184

Map needs a preview tab

#226

Catch up with Atom 1.0 link changes

#278

synchronize with OpenLayers 2.4

#319

allow user to stay "in the map"

Relevant Openlayers.org Tickets

http://trac.openlayers.org/ticket/193 http://trac.openlayers.org/ticket/259

Support

Please subscribe to the pleiades-software email list. The archives may be viewed online without subscription.

Release Notes

0.6

PleiadesOpenLayers 0.6 - October 5, 2006
========================================

This product embeds OpenLayers maps in Plone. For a live example, see

http://icon.stoa.org/pleiades-beta/Members/ol_map_view.

This release includes a patched OpenLayers 2.1. You can skip step 2 from
the readme doc.

New features include:

 * Automated configuration of skin layers.
 * "Map Context" and "Map Layer" content types for building OpenLayers
   maps in Plone.
 * Expose OpenLayer.js via filesystem view for pure-Plone sites.

PleiadesOpenLayers depends on PleiadesGeocoder and simplejson. 

For more details, see

  http://icon.stoa.org/trac/pleiades/wiki/PleiadesOpenLayers

About Pleiades
--------------

Pleiades is an international research network and associated web portal and
content management system devoted to the study of ancient geography. 

See http://icon.stoa.org/trac/pleiades/wiki.

Funding for the creation of this software was provided by a grant from the 
U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities (http://www.neh.gov).