I would also like to add a link to the HISTORY document, which shows
in more detail how impressive and how much work this release was. It
is also the place to find out quickly if your pet issue or bug was
fixed this release.
<http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/browser/tags/rel-5-0-0/mapserver/
HISTORY.TXT>
Great work guys! See you next week to drink some beers.
Howard
On Sep 17, 2007, at 3:23 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
The MapServer team is proud to announce the release of MapServer 5.0!
Perhaps the most important new feature in this release is support
for map rendering using the Anti-grain Geometry (AGG) graphics
library (www.antigrain.com). AGG brings high quality 2-D rendering
capabilities to MapServer that will allow users to create maps with
vastly improved cartographic quality. Equally important is that
using AGG results in a minimal reduction in performance. All
symbology supported by the default GD (www.libgd.org) graphics
library are also supported using AGG. We are excited about the
future possibilities of bringing high-end cartography to on-demand
web mapping.
This new version also includes dozens of small bug fixes,
enhancements and performance improvements. Among the new features
are: style and label attribute attribute binding; lookup table-
based raster color correction; dynamic charting (pie and bar);
explicit label prioritizing; enhanced debugging and logging;
dynamic allocation for layers, classes, styles and symbols;
improved memory management and garbage collection for MapScript;
numerous improvements to OGC specification support, and lots more.
A list of RFCs related to this release is included at the end of
this message.
The source code release is available at the usual location on the
MapServer site:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/download/current
This page also contains links to binary distributions that will
hopefully be updated with 5.0 binaries shortly.
Users of 4.10 and older should review the 5.0 migration guide which
documents the changes that must be made to your application when
upgrading from MapServer 4.10 to 5.0:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/download/current/MIGRATION_GUIDE.TXT/
Finally, here is a summary of MapServer 5.0 feature/enhancement
with the related RFCs. For more details on a specific item, please
refer to the corresponding RFC document at http://
mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc
New features:
------------
- MS RFC 19: Added Style and Label attribute binding
- MS RFC 21: Raster Color Correction via color lookup table
- MS RFC 27: Added label priority
- MS RFC 29: Added dynamic charting (pie and bar charts)
- MS RFC 31: New mechanism to load/set objects via URL using
mapfile syntax
- MS RFC 32: Added support for map rendering using the AGG library for
better output quality
Long time issues resolved:
-------------------------
- MS RFC 17: Use dynamic allocation for symbols, layers, classes
and styles
(got rid of the static limit on the number of instances of each
in a map)
- MS RFC 24: Improved memory management and garbage collection for
MapScript
- MS RFC 26: Terminology cleanup (layer transparency renamed to
opacity,
scale becomes scaledenom, symbol style becomes symbol pattern)
- MS RFC 28: Enhanced the debug/logging mechanism to facilitate
troubleshooting and tuning applications. Added support for multiple
debug levels and more control on output location.
