Dear MapServer users, I have created Dracones, a Python and JavaScript web mapping framework based on MapServer, which I think could be of interest to the open source web mapping/GIS community. It is available at:
http://surveillance.mcgill.ca/dracones This framework began its life as a surveillance application for Montreal Public Health. After a lot of refactoring sessions, I had the idea of abstracting a set of core client/server services, that would become the framework, and to rewrite the original application in terms of those. Thus the set of features offered by Dracones stems from pre-existing application needs, rather than the opposite. In a nutshell, here is what Dracones provides.. On the client side: * A lightweight but powerful map widget (100% JS), with state of the art features like AJAX-based smooth scrolling and visual selection * An extension mechanism to define new UI behaviors (e.g. what happens when clicking on the map, or drawing a selection box around objects) On the server side: * A set of Python classes and functions (written on top of Python-MapScript) that encapsulate the application state, and ease the interaction with its map objects * A well-thought extension mechanism, to define custom requests and queries Dracones also provides a bunch of other application-centric features, like easy map image export and undo/redo. Last but not least, I've been very careful in writing the documentation and tutorials, which I think cover a wide range of issues and possibilities. This work is still in Alpha stage, and I will be of course very interested to hear the community's comments and suggestions. Best regards, Christian Jauvin _______________________________________________ mapserver-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
