[Geoserver-devel] OpenLayers, caching and format specific params

Hi all,
I'd like to share some concerns about the new map preview with
OpenLayers.
Say you are editing a style, so in your browser you have the
style editor open (we can now edit SLD in the browser directly, yay!),
and the preview in another tab.
The workflow is simple, edit the style, apply, try to get the preview
to use the new style to check it. And this is where the thing gets
messy.

The was a bug in the on the fly meta-tile cache that I fixed (http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-1089), but even without
it, it may not be obvious how to force openlayers to discard
the tiles it has, and load new ones with the new style.

Forcing the page to reload usually does the trick, but you have
to know about it. Plus, it will really reload only if there is
no cache setting stating othewise in the http header.
The nice OpenLayers guys have a solution here:
http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/DynamicContent

To enable this, we should add a refresh button to our openlayers
output format. Do you think it's a good idea, or does it
starts to complicate the output format too much?
This is also linked somehow to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-1054, where I suggest we
should add format specific parameters to the GetMap. This way,
the above refresh button could be an optional feature:
http://myhost:8080/geoserver/wms?request=GetMap&...&of_option=refresh,untiled
(sample idea of how to ask for the refresh button, and use an untiled
layer).

Any thoughts on this?
Cheers
Andrea

Interesting issue. Is there any reason why a "refresh" button should not
always be present. I see it being simpler always being around rather
then a user having to ask for it.

Also, on a somewhat unlrelated note about GEOS-1054. I like the idea but
does this mean that one can support key value pairs withing a single
"outputFormat". Or is the intent to always have these format options be
on / off? I guess to pull off the kvp thing we would need to break out a
separate delimiter.

-Justin

Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi all,
I'd like to share some concerns about the new map preview with
OpenLayers.
Say you are editing a style, so in your browser you have the
style editor open (we can now edit SLD in the browser directly, yay!),
and the preview in another tab.
The workflow is simple, edit the style, apply, try to get the preview
to use the new style to check it. And this is where the thing gets
messy.

The was a bug in the on the fly meta-tile cache that I fixed
(http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-1089), but even without
it, it may not be obvious how to force openlayers to discard
the tiles it has, and load new ones with the new style.

Forcing the page to reload usually does the trick, but you have
to know about it. Plus, it will really reload only if there is
no cache setting stating othewise in the http header.
The nice OpenLayers guys have a solution here:
http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/DynamicContent

To enable this, we should add a refresh button to our openlayers
output format. Do you think it's a good idea, or does it
starts to complicate the output format too much?
This is also linked somehow to
http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-1054, where I suggest we
should add format specific parameters to the GetMap. This way,
the above refresh button could be an optional feature:
http://myhost:8080/geoserver/wms?request=GetMap&...&of_option=refresh,untiled
(sample idea of how to ask for the refresh button, and use an untiled
layer).

Any thoughts on this?
Cheers
Andrea

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Justin Deoliveira
The Open Planning Project
jdeolive@anonymised.com

Justin Deoliveira ha scritto:

Interesting issue. Is there any reason why a "refresh" button should not
always be present. I see it being simpler always being around rather
then a user having to ask for it.

Nothing really, I would just need to find a decent graphics for that
button (two blue arrows running one after the other in the same color
as the other OL UI elements would be perfect).
I thought about it as an option because it's not in the default OL
UI, that's all.

Also, on a somewhat unlrelated note about GEOS-1054. I like the idea but
does this mean that one can support key value pairs withing a single
"outputFormat". Or is the intent to always have these format options be
on / off? I guess to pull off the kvp thing we would need to break out a
separate delimiter.

Ah, my was just a silly example, but yeah, it would be nice to have a
KVP sequence in the options. I just don't know what to use as a separator and as an assignement chars that are easy to understand and
are not otherwise reserved.
One idea I had was to have it as flat list, and then parse it element
by element, if one needs a simple assignement, then read the next
element as the value, and so on. Not very readable thought....
Cheers
Andrea

Andrea Aime wrote:

Justin Deoliveira ha scritto:

Ah, my was just a silly example, but yeah, it would be nice to have a
KVP sequence in the options. I just don't know what to use as a
separator and as an assignement chars that are easy to understand and
are not otherwise reserved.
One idea I had was to have it as flat list, and then parse it element
by element, if one needs a simple assignement, then read the next
element as the value, and so on. Not very readable thought....

The thought I had was maybe using a colon or something like that.

Cheers
Andrea

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Justin Deoliveira
The Open Planning Project
jdeolive@anonymised.com

Justin Deoliveira ha scritto:

Andrea Aime wrote:

Justin Deoliveira ha scritto:

Ah, my was just a silly example, but yeah, it would be nice to have a
KVP sequence in the options. I just don't know what to use as a separator and as an assignement chars that are easy to understand and
are not otherwise reserved.
One idea I had was to have it as flat list, and then parse it element
by element, if one needs a simple assignement, then read the next
element as the value, and so on. Not very readable thought....

The thought I had was maybe using a colon or something like that.

Yeah, seems like the most natural candidate, yet I'm not sure you
can use it, since it's part of the protocol declaration in urls.
Worth checking.

Cheers
Andrea

Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi all,
I'd like to share some concerns about the new map preview with
OpenLayers.
Say you are editing a style, so in your browser you have the
style editor open (we can now edit SLD in the browser directly, yay!),
and the preview in another tab.
The workflow is simple, edit the style, apply, try to get the preview
to use the new style to check it. And this is where the thing gets
messy.
  

Andrea, what are you using for your SLD editor?
Have you written an OpenLayers editor, or writing it in JSP, or using Mapbuilder's SLD editor, or something else?

--
Cameron Shorter
Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Cameron Shorter ha scritto:

Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi all,
I'd like to share some concerns about the new map preview with
OpenLayers.
Say you are editing a style, so in your browser you have the
style editor open (we can now edit SLD in the browser directly, yay!),
and the preview in another tab.
The workflow is simple, edit the style, apply, try to get the preview
to use the new style to check it. And this is where the thing gets
messy.
  

Andrea, what are you using for your SLD editor?
Have you written an OpenLayers editor, or writing it in JSP, or using Mapbuilder's SLD editor, or something else?

EditArea: http://www.cdolivet.net/editarea/editarea/exemples/exemple_full.html

A generic text editor that enhances a textarea giving it fonts
settings, search and replace, undo/redo and syntax highlighting.
There is nothing SLD specific about it.

Cheers
Andrea

Anthony Manfredi,
Andrea tells me that you are a Google Summer of Code student who will be writing a SLD Editor?

This is a very needed piece of functionality by a number of applications. Of note:
Olivier Terral and others at Geomatys have written a SLD editor in http://communitymapbuilder.org which I'm expecting to include into a client for the Canadian Geoconnections project.

. It is still a bit rough around the edges, but should give you a good basis to start from.
The trunk version is at http://nightly.communitymapbuilder.org/mapbuilder/demo/sldEditor/index.html
which I notice seems to be broken at the moment. Try downloading the last release.

Anyway, I suggest we should work closely together on this. Join forces hopefully all our work will come out looking much better.

Andrea Aime wrote:

Cameron Shorter ha scritto:

Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi all,
I'd like to share some concerns about the new map preview with
OpenLayers.
Say you are editing a style, so in your browser you have the
style editor open (we can now edit SLD in the browser directly, yay!),
and the preview in another tab.
The workflow is simple, edit the style, apply, try to get the preview
to use the new style to check it. And this is where the thing gets
messy.
  

Andrea, what are you using for your SLD editor?
Have you written an OpenLayers editor, or writing it in JSP, or using Mapbuilder's SLD editor, or something else?

EditArea: http://www.cdolivet.net/editarea/editarea/exemples/exemple_full.html

A generic text editor that enhances a textarea giving it fonts
settings, search and replace, undo/redo and syntax highlighting.
There is nothing SLD specific about it.

Cheers
Andrea

--
Cameron Shorter
Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Hi Cameron,

Thanks for the info! I have been travelling home these last few days after graduating, but I am indeed beginning work on an SLD editor, and I look forward to joining you in this endeavor.

-Anthony

On 6/1/07, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter@anonymised.com> wrote:

Anthony Manfredi,
Andrea tells me that you are a Google Summer of Code student who will be
writing a SLD Editor?

This is a very needed piece of functionality by a number of
applications. Of note:
Olivier Terral and others at Geomatys have written a SLD editor in
http://communitymapbuilder.org which I’m expecting to include into a
client for the Canadian Geoconnections project.

. It is still a bit rough around the edges, but should give you a good
basis to start from.
The trunk version is at
http://nightly.communitymapbuilder.org/mapbuilder/demo/sldEditor/index.html
which I notice seems to be broken at the moment. Try downloading the
last release.

Anyway, I suggest we should work closely together on this. Join forces
hopefully all our work will come out looking much better.

Andrea Aime wrote:

Cameron Shorter ha scritto:

Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi all,
I’d like to share some concerns about the new map preview with
OpenLayers.
Say you are editing a style, so in your browser you have the
style editor open (we can now edit SLD in the browser directly, yay!),
and the preview in another tab.
The workflow is simple, edit the style, apply, try to get the preview
to use the new style to check it. And this is where the thing gets
messy.

Andrea, what are you using for your SLD editor?
Have you written an OpenLayers editor, or writing it in JSP, or using
Mapbuilder’s SLD editor, or something else?

EditArea:
http://www.cdolivet.net/editarea/editarea/exemples/exemple_full.html

A generic text editor that enhances a textarea giving it fonts
settings, search and replace, undo/redo and syntax highlighting.
There is nothing SLD specific about it.

Cheers
Andrea


Cameron Shorter
Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254