You should use the webservices at http://www.geonames.org/export
As example, I live here :-) http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyPlaceNameJSON?lat=37.867&lng=-5.6 You can make great things using this and an AJAX request. Hope this helps. On Jan 7, 2008 7:05 AM, David Pruitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Well, there are a few reasons why using MapServer is out of the question. > > 1. I am running my mapping application on some server space that I have on > the computer science servers here on campus. Although I am granted server > space, I obviously have no ability to change the settings to Apache or put > MapServer into the cgi-bin of Apache. Therefore, although I can run PHP > scripts (which I do), running something like MapServer is out of the > question. > > 2. I am running Apache on my personal machine....and so of course I could > install MapServer on here, but my personal machine is not the "production > environment"...it is simply the testing environment. The production > environment is my server space on the CS servers - and if I can't run > MapServer on those servers, there is no point running it on my test server > (my personal computer). > > 3. Even if I did have access to a production server where I could configure > Apache how I wanted it to be - I am completely unfamiliar with MapServer and > WMS requests - although I am very familiar with HTTP requests and networking > in general. WMS is simply a protocol I don't know. In addition, I don't > know how to create a map that would work with MapServer. > > Consequently: > > I am currently using the free map available at: > > http://labs.metacarta.com/wms/vmap0? > > Which is also used in many of the OpenLayers demos. I am thinking, however, > of using Google Maps possibly, but I am not sure yet. > > So this is my dilemma: Under these circumstances, how can I recognize which > country a user has clicked on the map? > > Several months ago at work I made a simple mapping application in Flash (at > which time I didn't even know OpenLayers or MapServer existed). For that > mapping application we simply overlayed an image of each country on top of > itself on the world map, and then the overlayed image acted as a button - > thus making it quite simple to tell which country had been clicked. I was > hoping to do something similar with OpenLayers in this mapping application > that I am currently building, but using the "Features" in OpenLayers to > create polygons that I could overlay over each country - and essentially > have each polygon act as a button so I could tell which country had been > clicked. I noticed however, that if I held my mouse button down on one of > these polygons, I could no longer pan around the map...which is definitely a > problem. > > How does the example map at http://world.freemap.in/ accomplish this task? > I looked at the code, and although I am new to OpenLayers and this whole WMS > thing...it seems like it is making some WMS requests to a MapServer server. > > Thanks for any help. > > David > > > Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 06:42:27 +0100 > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: [OpenLayers-Users] Selecting a country > > CC: [email protected] > > > > On Jan 7, 2008 3:22 AM, David Pruitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Let's say I have a user who is looking at my map, and clicks on a > specific > > > country. What is the best way to recognize which country he clicked on? > > > > > > I thought using features would be good, but a user can't pan around the > map > > > if he/she is holding down the mouse button on a feature. > > > > > > Is there any way to accomplish this WITHOUT using MapServer or GeoServer > or > > > something of that sort? > > > > Hello > > > > If the countries aren't rendered by the browser (and therefore you > > don't have information about these countries on the client side) then > > you need to send a request to some service to get information on the > > clicked country. Have you had some other solution in mind? > > > > -- > > Eric > > > ________________________________ > Make distant family not so distant with Windows Vista(R) + Windows Live™. > Start now! > _______________________________________________ > Users mailing list > [email protected] > http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users > > -- Regards, Christian López Espínola _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [email protected] http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users
