Slashgeo

The Les-ejk blog provides nice short descriptions of OpenLayers, ExtJS, MapFish, GeoExt and HSLayers. Both GeoExt and HSLayers were never mentioned on Slashgeo, now they are. From the GeoExt website: "GeoExt is a JavaScript library providing the groundwork for creating web-mapping applications based on OpenLayers and Ext." Ok, but what is Ext? From the Ext wikipedia page: "Ext (pronounced "X'd"[1]) is a JavaScript library for building interactive web applications[2] using techniques such as AJAX, DHTML and DOM scripting." See also some related stories below.

The webmapping open source framework MapFish, introduced last October, now integrates with the Google Earth Plugin. From the entry: "There's a full real-time interaction between MapFish and GE. Translation and rotation of special MapFish tool moves GE camera. Panning and camera tilting on GE side moves MapFish tool." See also related stories below.

The MapFish team announced the release of the open source webmapping framework MapFish version 1.1. The main new features from the official blog: "Server-side components: - Rails plugin. - printing of vector layers. Client-side components: - recenter widget. - layer tree context menus. - feature store. - Google Earth/MapFish integration example. - print action (print button in a toolbar). The release's wiki page is accessible here." See also previous MapFish stories below.

Emmanuel BELO writes "We are proud to announce the release of the new SwitzerlandMobility mapping website using MapFish Framework: http://map.veloland.ch/

Many functionalities are available:
  * ergonomic design,
  * large amount of pregenerated base layers (aerial and national maps provided by swisstopo),
  * around 50 layers that are concatenated with TileCache,
  * layertree with groups and radio buttons, advanced tooltips,
  * high quality print.
This website takes advantage of amazon web services as cloud computing infrastructure." Some related stories copied below.

Cedric Moullet writes "Have a look at the MapFish blog to discover the new functionality of Studio." The screencast quickly show what this is all about. From the blog entry: "We are currently working on extending the capabilities of Studio and the goal is to offer three main components: - A tool to manage the data sources - A tool to manage and edit MapFiles - A tool to generate MapFish sites, with view, edit, search and query capabilities." See also previous MapFish stories below, including the MapFish 1.1 release last January.

Geoweb Guru offers a technical overview of MapFish, the open source web mapping framework. From the entry: "As a development framework, MapFish Server it better suited for applications where customization is required. MapFish Server also makes it easier to implement editable layers. Ie. MapFish client can transfer feature changes to MapFish Server where the underling PostGIS database is updated. This communication uses the RESTful MapFish Protocol." See also previous MapFish stories below, including MapFish Manager.

Cedric Moullet writes "MapFish 1.2 has just been released ! Highlights are the ultra simplified installation procedure on Windows and Linux, a totally new website (http://www.mapfish.org), the integration of GeoExt 0.6, the support of Pylons 0.9.7 and Python 2.6, a client plug-in simplifying the creation of MapFish application and improvements of the MapFish protocol. Don't miss the Quickstart: http://www.mapfish.org/doc/1.2/quickstart.html Official announcement: http://trac.mapfish.org/trac/mapfish/wiki/Releases /1.2/Announcement" See also below for previous related MapFish stories.

GeoExt writes "The GeoExt community is proud to announce the release of GeoExt 0.5, the first GeoExt version to be released. GeoExt brings together the geospatial power of OpenLayers with the user interface savvy of Ext JS to help you build powerful desktop style GIS applications on the web with JavaScript. GeoExt is available under the BSD license and is supported by a growing community of individuals, businesses and organizations. GeoExt 0.5 comes with a fine selection of widgets and data access components for rich web-based geospatial applications, the full list of which can be found in the Release Notes. Some of the highlights include:

• MapPanel for seamless integration of OpenLayers maps in Ext JS applications
• LegendPanel to display legends for WMS layers
• LayerNodes and LayerContainers to create customized layer switchers in Ext trees
• Popups as anchored Ext windows
• Ext data components for convenient handling of OpenLayers data structures like layers and vector features

Learn more: for downloads and documentation, please visit the GeoExt website." See also related stories below.

Cedric Moullet writes "GeoExt brings together the geospatial know how of OpenLayers with the user interface savvy of Ext JS to help you build powerful desktop style GIS apps on the web with JavaScript. The GeoExt community is proud to announce the first release candidate of GeoExt 0.5, the first GeoExt version to be released. You find more information on this RC1 on the GeoExt blog. And don't miss the doc in order to make your first steps with this great library ;-)"

Cedric Moullet writes "MapFish Framework has been used by the Joint Research Center of the European Commision to create a prototype INSPIRE geoportal and allows discovery and viewing of spatial data sets. The INSPIRE geoportal provide the means to search for spatial data sets and spatial data services, and subject to access restrictions, view and download spatial data sets from the EU Member States within the framework of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Directive."

This is an extract from a personal email. It's obviously very incomplete and you are welcomed to share additions and corrections in comments below. The context is a discussion about the user-friendliness of today's open source geospatial software. Here below you'll find direct links to screenshots of popular OSS software, all previously mentioned on the site (see related stories below).
"You are absolutely right with saying that documentation and user-friendliness has not been a strength of geospatial open source software in the past, but that has significantly changed in recent years and is still evolving very rapidly. Before I give a list of examples of the top of my head (experts could provide even more insights), I'd like to focus on this: sharing information and knowledge is the key here. Even if the benefits of open source geospatial software can surpasses its inconveniences for many applications, stakeholders must be aware of all the opportunities available to make the best technology choice possible otherwise people just stick with what they know, even if it's not the best solution.

Examples of some open source geospatial software that are now "user friendly":
** GIS:
* Quantum GIS can be considered quite user-friendly. It is far from being as full featured as ArcGIS, but can do surprisingly a lot, especially with the GRASS GIS plugin that unleashes serious geoprocessing power within the QGIS graphical user interface.
* There are plenty of other open source GIS that have good graphical user interfaces: uDig, OpenJump, gvSIG and several others.

** Web mapping:
* Autodesk's MapGuide Open Source also have map authoring tools such as Maestro and Fusion.
* OpenLayers.org while one can simply copy existing examples, there's OpenLayers Architect and LiziLayers that offers enhanced WYSIWYG capabilities.
* The MapFish.org framework also a Studio too now.
* You can even generate web maps directly from within the Quantum GIS interface.

** Other:
* Several other open source geospatial software can be considered quite user-friendly for what they do (e.g. GeoServer). Others, such as PostGIS (GUI tool), are probably as 'user-friendly' as other spatial RDBMS are. Even OpenStreetMap has a feature-rich GUI for editing maps.

This list is obviously incomplete (I'm still no expert! ;-), but I hope it does convince you that open source geospatial has come a long way in the recent years and is continuing to improve at a crazy rate. That said, yes, advanced proprietary software is still very appropriate (even required!) for some applications, it really depends on what you want to do! But one must also be aware of all the options at hand."

Cedric Moullet writes "The web 2.0 development framework MapFish will start the OSGEO incubation process. See this blog entry for more information." Part of that entry: " It's now an honour to be recognized on the OSGEO level, together with very well-established Open Source projects. We face now some very interesting challenge like defining the exact content of MapFish, deciding about the license model and the copyright assignment, organizing the PSC and the governance etc, etc... But maybe, the biggest challenge will be to explain what is exactly MapFish and what are its benefits." See also related stories below, MapFish was mentioned quite a few times.