Introducing Mapbuilder

1
Introducing Mapbuilder

• Michael Adair
• Natural Resources Canada

2
Introduction
Mapbuilder-lib consists of JavaScript components
to build geographic client applications within a
web browser

• Leverages OGC specifications for web mapping
  Context, WMS,
• Retrieves XML documents (and images) dynamically
  at run-time using HTTP
• Renders XML documents to HTML using the browsers
  built-in XSLT processor
• Object-oriented architecture using the
  Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern

3
Design Drivers

• Client is a web browser
• Minimal server side requirements
• Easy to incorporate libraries into a web page
• Keep bandwidth to a minimum
• Use JavaScript/DHTML, XML/XSL
• Modular design
• Open source (GPL)
• Attract developers

4
MVC design pattern
The MVC pattern forces one to think of an
application in terms of three modules

• Model
• maintains the state and data of the application -
  the XML document
• View
• A rendering of the XML document
• Controller
• The user interface presented to the user to
  manipulate the application

5
The configuration file

• All mapbuilder applications are initialized from
  an XML configuration file
• Closely follows the MVC design pattern to define
  models, widgets (views) and tools (controllers)
  used in the application
• Links the HTML elements to JavaScript objects
  via ID attributes
• Follows Object-Property-Value rule of RDF and GML

6
Using Mapbuilder

• Download the library and install on a web server
• Create the HTML for your page and identify
  elements where mapbuilder content is to be
  inserted
• Create your configuration document
• Include the JavaScript library and initialize

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Simple example page

• lthtmlgt
• ltheadgt
• lttitlegtMapbuilder Demolt/titlegt
• ltscriptgt
• // URL of Mapbuilder configuration file.
• var mbConfigUrl'config/SimpleConfig.xml'
• lt/scriptgt
• ltscript type"text/javascript"
  src"../lib/Mapbuilder.js"gtlt/scriptgt
• lt/headgt
• ltbody onload"mbDoLoad()"gt
• ltdiv id"mainMapPane"gtlt/divgt
• lt/bodygt
• lt/htmlgt

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Demos

• Mapbuilder User Guide
• (Quicklook server)
• (Localhost version)
• Reference implementation
• (Quicklook server)
• (Localhost version)
• Loading external URLs

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Features

• Very easy entry point to web mapping
• Extensible
• Consumes standards-based web services, primarily
  from the OGC
• Runs in IE6, Mozilla 1.3, Netscape 6
• Very responsive client no page reloads

10
Future plans

• Support for more models, widgets, tools
• from user requirements
• WFS client via WMS/SLD and/or SVG
• depends on OGC context spec evolution
• WFS-T client add/edit features
• depends on WFS-T server
• Applications simple to complex
• Allows community to make maps
• Context editor

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Contact Info

• http//mapbuilder.sourceforge.net
• Mapbuilder mailing list
• mapbuilder-devel_at_lists.sourceforge.net
• mike.adair_at_nrcan.gc.ca
• Also at the NRCan booth in the exhibit area