[Geoserver-devel] Some thuougs after comparing geoserver against the wms 1.1.1 spec

GeoServer GeoServer Developer
1

Hi all,
here are some random things I've noticed while reading the WMS spec.

1) AUTO CRS does not seem to be supported?
2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).
3) Contact information can be entered into a configuration page, but
     it's nowere to be seen in the getCapabilites outputs?
4) No metadata URL... it may be that a WMS layer is described in
    an external catalog... the same applies more or less to lots
    of other WMS layer specific parameters, it seems there's no way
    to specify them?
5) Cascading WMS... Seems a little crazy to me to try
    and reproject a map that's already been styled and labelled, reprojection
    at the drawn map level will simply ruin everything...

Cheers
Andrea

2

aaime@anonymised.com wrote:

Hi all,
here are some random things I've noticed while reading the WMS spec.

Note I'm not a WMS spec expert, at least not in the same way as I know wfs backwards and forwards.

1) AUTO CRS does not seem to be supported?

As far as I know, no. I never dug in to figuring out how this worked, and no one's seemed to have requested it.

2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).

No, we don't use it. There's a bug in jira to support this. I suppose we'd do it by whenever there's a 'apply/save' in the web admin? I never thought of the use case of caching, which makes sense.

3) Contact information can be entered into a configuration page, but
     it's nowere to be seen in the getCapabilites outputs?

Yeah, that's a bug, that worked before. Go ahead and file it and investigate where the problem might be if you have time. I think something's just not propagating right.

4) No metadata URL... it may be that a WMS layer is described in
    an external catalog... the same applies more or less to lots
    of other WMS layer specific parameters, it seems there's no way
    to specify them?

Yeah, there's a jira for this too. Have been meaning to add it for awhile, haven't had the time. It's quite important to be able to do this actually.

5) Cascading WMS... Seems a little crazy to me to try
    and reproject a map that's already been styled and labelled, reprojection
    at the drawn map level will simply ruin everything...

I think what you'd do is maybe just not offer reprojection on that layer? Or offer it and recommend against it. But we have no immediate plans to support it...

Chris

Cheers
Andrea

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--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org

3

Chris Holmes ha scritto:

2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).

No, we don't use it. There's a bug in jira to support this. I suppose we'd do it by whenever there's a 'apply/save' in the web admin? I never thought of the use case of caching, which makes sense.

I'll open a jira issue for this then. Yet, I think it would be nicer to first fix the configuration
subsystem, and only after start caring about this :slight_smile:
What do you think?

3) Contact information can be entered into a configuration page, but
     it's nowere to be seen in the getCapabilites outputs?

Yeah, that's a bug, that worked before. Go ahead and file it and investigate where the problem might be if you have time. I think something's just not propagating right.

http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-721

4) No metadata URL... it may be that a WMS layer is described in
    an external catalog... the same applies more or less to lots
    of other WMS layer specific parameters, it seems there's no way
    to specify them?

Yeah, there's a jira for this too. Have been meaning to add it for awhile, haven't had the time. It's quite important to be able to do this actually.

Hmm... you're the boss, change the priorities and assignements accordingly :-p

5) Cascading WMS... Seems a little crazy to me to try
    and reproject a map that's already been styled and labelled, reprojection
    at the drawn map level will simply ruin everything...

I think what you'd do is maybe just not offer reprojection on that layer? Or offer it and recommend against it. But we have no immediate plans to support it...

Ok
Cheers
Andrea

4

aaime@anonymised.com wrote:

Chris Holmes ha scritto:

2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).

No, we don't use it. There's a bug in jira to support this. I suppose we'd do it by whenever there's a 'apply/save' in the web admin? I never thought of the use case of caching, which makes sense.

I'll open a jira issue for this then. Yet, I think it would be nicer to first fix the configuration

No, there's already a jira for it: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-235

subsystem, and only after start caring about this :slight_smile:
What do you think?

I agree, it's low priority.

3) Contact information can be entered into a configuration page, but
     it's nowere to be seen in the getCapabilites outputs?

Yeah, that's a bug, that worked before. Go ahead and file it and investigate where the problem might be if you have time. I think something's just not propagating right.

http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-721

Cool.

4) No metadata URL... it may be that a WMS layer is described in
    an external catalog... the same applies more or less to lots
    of other WMS layer specific parameters, it seems there's no way
    to specify them?

Yeah, there's a jira for this too. Have been meaning to add it for awhile, haven't had the time. It's quite important to be able to do this actually.

Hmm... you're the boss, change the priorities and assignements accordingly :-p

Cool, yeah, put it on your list.

Chris

5) Cascading WMS... Seems a little crazy to me to try
    and reproject a map that's already been styled and labelled, reprojection
    at the drawn map level will simply ruin everything...

I think what you'd do is maybe just not offer reprojection on that layer? Or offer it and recommend against it. But we have no immediate plans to support it...

Ok
Cheers
Andrea

!DSPAM:1003,4521375c301771971556521!

--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org

5

aaime@anonymised.com wrote:

Hi all,
here are some random things I've noticed while reading the WMS spec.

1) AUTO CRS does not seem to be supported?
  

I supported it :slight_smile: It was included with the epsg-wkt module, I think martin moved it somewhere.

2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).
  

Since *nobody* seems to do that number we have not bothered caching anything yet in uDig.

3) Contact information can be entered into a configuration page, but
     it's nowere to be seen in the getCapabilites outputs?
  

? that is a new one ?

4) No metadata URL... it may be that a WMS layer is described in
    an external catalog... the same applies more or less to lots
    of other WMS layer specific parameters, it seems there's no way
    to specify them?
  

You are correct we have never run into a case where metadata was recorded (or asked for yet), best was a cross link
to the WFS as the "resource URL" if I remember correctly.

5) Cascading WMS... Seems a little crazy to me to try
   and reproject a map that's already been styled and labelled, reprojection
    at the drawn map level will simply ruin everything...
  

But yet the commercial vendors do it, we would hope that they request the map in the correct projection. Some WMS implementations are horrible as they change their capabilities document on the fly w/ respect to the contents (and uptime) of cascaded WMS layers.

Jody

6

Jody Garnett ha scritto:

aaime@anonymised.com wrote:

Hi all,
here are some random things I've noticed while reading the WMS spec.

1) AUTO CRS does not seem to be supported?
  

I supported it :slight_smile: It was included with the epsg-wkt module, I think martin moved it somewhere.

Then we're probably going to get it back once Martin has done his crs factory chaining
stuff...

2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).
  

Since *nobody* seems to do that number we have not bothered caching anything yet in uDig.

Hmm... I'm wondering if it's worth adding stuff that nobody elses uses...

4) No metadata URL... it may be that a WMS layer is described in
    an external catalog... the same applies more or less to lots
    of other WMS layer specific parameters, it seems there's no way
    to specify them?
  

You are correct we have never run into a case where metadata was recorded (or asked for yet), best was a cross link
to the WFS as the "resource URL" if I remember correctly.

Well, asked for it, yes, there is a jira issue open for this.

5) Cascading WMS... Seems a little crazy to me to try
   and reproject a map that's already been styled and labelled, reprojection
    at the drawn map level will simply ruin everything...
  

But yet the commercial vendors do it, we would hope that they request the map in the correct projection. Some WMS implementations are horrible as they change their capabilities document on the fly w/ respect to the contents (and uptime) of cascaded WMS layers.

Why horrible... if you start playing with your geoserver configuration your capability document
will dynamically change as well... that's why I was concerned about sequenceNumber.

Cheers
Andrea

7

One more request -

when configuring keywords for a feature type, it would be nice to be able to configure common keywords, and specific keywords that gets for WFS, WMS etc.

The existing system handles the different WMS and WFS keywords syntax very nicely :slight_smile:

2) I don't see any usage of the updateSequence parameter in getCapabilities,
    yet it seems to be important for capabilities caching (uDig has problems
    with cap caching afaik).

No, we don't use it. There's a bug in jira to support this. I suppose we'd do it by whenever there's a 'apply/save' in the web admin? I never thought of the use case of caching, which makes sense.

Only 8 years later... (I fought hard to include this in the original WMS 1.0 spec! lack of implementation has been a pain ever since) As we get more WMS servers we will care more and more I suspect.

Rob A