On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 08:27:44PM +0800, Robert Ford wrote: > HI group, > I have been wondering if someone could explain in simple terms what is Open > Layers all about. The description on website is non conclusive for me to > relate it to other open source initiatives like geoserver or geonetowork or > mapserver.
OpenLayers is a client side web mapping library. It takes data from a number of sources and renders them into a map. It does not provide rendering on its own, but depends on a server like GeoServer or MapServer. It can be used to create rich client side applications, and essentially fills a role very similar to the Google Maps Javascript API. > How does Open Layers work? > What can we do with Open Layers that we cant do with Geoserver? Well, OpenLayers and GeoServer are entirely different tools -- GeoServer is a server side application, OpenLayers is a client side Javascript library. Do you use GeoServer? If you have used GeoServer in the past couple months/year, you have probably seen OpenLayers: It powers the browsable "Map Demo" pages (like listed on http://sigma.openplans.org/geoserver/mapPreview.do). > How do you compare Open Layers with Geoserver/Mapserver? Like Apples and Oranges. > Whats the benefit of using OpenLayers ? When compared to what? > How do you work with Open Layers and integrate it with other servers like > Mapguide etc OpenLayers has support for many different datasources and provides the same tools to interact with them. So, MapGuide Open Source has an OpenLayers Layer class, as do other datasources like ka-Map, MapServer CGI, etc. However, usually one uses WMS layers -- from servers like MapServer, GeoServer -- or pre-cached tiles from sources like TileCache or OpenStreetMap. Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt MetaCarta _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [email protected] http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users
