UMN Mapserver development tools

Here are some interesting tools to improve your mapfile coding work:

- http://www.mediamaps.ch/download/MapFileSyntaxColoration.zip for mapfile syntax highlighting in Eclipse
- http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=12766 is a plugin for ArcMap
to convert a set of configured layers (mxd) to a mapfile (or axl)
- See all utilities at http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/link

ColdFusion password reset

Can't enter your ColdFusion administrator anymore, because your brain has a blank where the CF administrator password should be? Try this:

Log into your server with ssh as 'root'

Edit the file /opt/coldfusionmx7/lib/password.properties with your favorite text editor, something like this should work:

vi /opt/coldfusionmx7/lib/password.properties

The contents of this file look something like this:

#Wed Mar 30 14:44:26 PST 2005
rdspassword='(5_K42"O"
npassword='#<,(F-# Q
nencrypted=true

Put your new password after the = signs in the rdspassword= and password= lines, erasing everything after.

Change the encrypted=true line to encrypted=false and save this file A fully modified file might look like this:

#Wed Mar 30 14:44:26 PST 2005
rdspassword=my_new_password
password=my_new_password
encrypted=false

Restart coldfusionmx like this:

/etc/init.d/coldfusionmx restart

this may take up to a few minutes.

What about JSON

Last year Yahoo introduced JSON. An ajax-alike javascript methodology. I recently used this technique in a website where ajax was not an option, since the server running the website (a .Net cms) was not the same as the server responding to the ajax calls (ColdFusion/Oracle). JSON however can be used in a construction like this (though if everybody starts exploiding it, browsers may close this option in future releases).

JSON is based on
<script src="http://www.someserver.com/some_script_engine.cfm/php/aspx" lanuage="javascript">

Yahoo offers a tutorial which uses a client-click to introduce a new <script>-tag in the html, performing a new JSON-request.

Another advantage of json is that it's fast! Ajax is xml, it means lots of overhead on your internet-line. JSON however is pure javascript content.

{ "Image": { "Width":800, "Height":600, "Title":"View from 15th Floor", "Thumbnail": { "Url":"http:\/\/scd.mm-b1.yimg.com\/image\/481989943", "Height": 125, "Width": "100" }, "IDs":[ 116, 943, 234, 38793 ] }}

Waiting for ColdFusion 8

ColdFusion 8 beta is available. The new version offers some very usefull improvements like Step through code debugging in a new Eclipse plug-in debugger and Image creation and manipulation with more than 50 new CFML tags and functions. Next to that they offer better performance, a new tag suporting threading and the introduction of javascript syntax like ++, > and = (in stead of ) For more improvements view the specs

Fusebox 5 released

Why should you upgrade! Actually why not, Fusebox 5 is backward compatible, so you don't have to make any changes. For me Fusebox 5 has some advantages.

• Nesting of and is possible.
• You can use to include a template from a different circuit.
• Performance has improved (completely build as cfc)

Read about fusebox at http://www.fusebox.org/

Good to know:

• Reparse your fusebox.xml using &fusebox.password=dummy&fusebox.load=true
• Fusebox.org has been restyled recently

Coldfuion interface to mapserver

Siber Solutions offers an CF interface to the Mapscript API via the SWIG / Java API. Now you can ask things like createMap. But also manipulte the layers (setLayerData) in the mapfile the way you want them (in stead of using %var%-variables in the url-request).

Read more at the mapserver wiki

Or download instantly at http://www.sibern.com.au/index.cfm/spid/1_8.cfm

Notice that the latest mapserver is compiled for java 1.5, ColdFusion needs java 1.4.

drag & drop <li> lists

I bet you always wanted to re-arrange your -internet-map-layers (or pages in a cms) using drag and drop like in arcview. Recently introduced dhtml features allow you to do it. Both Dojo and script.aculo.us offer a script which can re-order <ul><li> items using drag and drop.

look at the demo at http://wiki.script.aculo.us/scriptaculous/show/SortableListsDemo