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Mapbender3 Quickstart

Mapbender is a web based geoportal framework to publish, register, view, navigate, monitor and grant secure access to spatial data infrastructure services.

Management interfaces empower administrators who need to maintain and categorize map and feature services and grant access to individuals, groups and other services.

Mapbender3 is the next version in the Mapbender series. It is rewritten from the ground up, using modern web technologies. The foundation is laid by Symfony 2, the brand-new version of the successful Symfony PHP web application framework.

On the client-side expect to find OpenLayers and jQuery (UI) nicely glued together by MapQuery.

With this new code base we will continue the Mapbender idea of being a Geoportal Framework:
  • Applications can be setup and configured right from within the browser
  • Services like WMS can be managed inside a service repository and linked to applications
  • Rights management are easy to maintain, for individual users and groups, whether you store them inside the database or in an LDAP.

You will need nothing but a standard web browser for this quickstart.

This Quick Start describes how to:

  • start Mapbender
  • create an application
  • load a Web Map Service (OGC WMS)
  • configure WMS
  • create an individual application
  • create a user and a group and assign applications to them

This is how a Mapbender application can look like:

../../_images/mapbender3_basic_application.png

Installation

For the installation of Mapbender3 have a look at http://doc.mapbender3.org/en/book/installation.html.

Start Mapbender

  1. Choose Mapbender from the start menu or visit http://localhost/mapbender3/app.php

If you have any difficulties running Mapbender, please check whether your Apache web server and your PostgreSQL database are running.

Start Mapbender in the developer mode app_dev.php

Symfony offers a developer mode with lot of information about your application (logging, exceptions, database queries, memory usage, time and more). This mode is only available from localhost.

../../_images/mapbender3_app_dev.png
  1. Start the developer mode: http://localhost/mapbender3/app_dev.php
  2. Have a look at the information that is offered in the developer mode.
../../_images/mapbender3_symfony_profiler.png

Welcome page

  1. The Welcome page lists applications that are public and can be used by all users. The applications are listed with a little screenshot, a title and a description.
  2. You can open an application by click on the title or the start button.
  3. Before you can administrate with Mapbender you have to login to get access to the administration.
  4. Click on Login at right-top to open the login page.
  5. You can login with the user that was generated on installation. It can be root and password root (This is the default user and password that you get after installation of Mapbender on OSGeo-Live. Please change the root password if you want to run a productive environment. Please don’t delete the user root.).
../../_images/mapbender3_welcome.png

After successful login you are directed to the Mapbender administration.

Application overview

After the login you are directed to the Applications with a list of applications you are allowed to access.

The Application overview provides the following functionality:

  • title and description
  • link to the application
  • button to edit the application
  • button to publish/unpublish the application
  • button to delete the application
  • button to create a new application
  • with the filter textfield you can search for applications
../../_images/mapbender3_application_overview.png

Create an individual application

Create a new application by providing basic information about your application. After that you use the edit mode to add elements, layers and security.

  1. choose Applications ‣ New Application
  2. define a title and description for your application
  3. define an URL title which will be used in the URL to open te application. It can be the same as the title
  4. choose the button Create to create the application
  5. click the Edit-Button at the new application to edit the application
  6. your application is set up. Now you need a WMS to be displayed in your application. This will be described in the section WMS Management.
../../_images/mapbender3_create_application.png

Delete an application

You can delete an application from the menu item Applications with the +-button.

Management of Data Sources

Mapbender can handle different Services like OGC WMS or OGC WMTS or OGC WFS. Every Service has to be handled differently. The administration provides an administration interface for every source (at the moment only WMS).

Service Repository overview

  1. Go to Services and have a look at the Service repository.
  2. You get an overview on the Sources that are loaded in your Mapbender.
  3. Type (f.e WMS, WMTS), Title, Description offer first information about the services.
  4. On click on the button View-Button you get further information about the source.
  5. With the button Delete-Button you can delete the source from your repository.

Loading Web Map Services

You can load OGC Web Map Services (WMS) to your application.

A WMS returns an XML-file when the getCapabilities document is requested. This information is parsed by Mapbender and Mapbender gets all the necessary information about the service from this XML

Tip

You should first check the Capabilities document in your browser before you try to load it with Mapbender

  1. Choose menu item Services ‣ Add Service or use the +-Button. Link to the WMS getCapabilities URL in the text field Serviceurl.
  2. Enter username and password if your service needs authentication.
  3. Hit Load to load the Service to the repository.
  4. After successfull registration of the service Mapbender will display an overview on the information that was provided by the service.
../../_images/mapbender3_wms_load.png

Here are some example WMS:

Germany demo

http://wms.wheregroup.com/cgi-bin/germany.xml?VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&SERVICE=WMS

WhereGroup OSM WMS

http://osm-demo.wheregroup.com/service

Omniscale OSM WMS (see also http://osm.omniscale.de/) http://osm.omniscale.net/proxy/service?

Add Service to Application

After the successfull upload of a WMS you want to add your WMS to an application.

  1. Choose Applications ‣ edit-Button ‣ Layers ‣ Edit-Button.
  2. Click on the +-button to add a layerset, which represents a collection of layers (a possible name could be main)
  3. Now you can add layer to the layerset
  4. Click on the +-button at your new layerset to add a Service.
  5. You can change the order of the Services in your application by drag & drop.
../../_images/mapbender3_add_source_to_application.png

Configure your WMS

You can configure the WMS for your specific application. Maybe you don’t want to provide all layers or you want to change the order or titles of the layer or disable the feature info or change the maxscale for a layer.

  1. Choose Applications ‣ edit-Button ‣ Layers ‣ edit-Button to configure the Service Instance.
  2. You will see a table with the layers of the Service.
  3. You can change the order of the layers via drag & drop
../../_images/mapbender3_wms_application_settings.png

Service configuration

  • format - choose the format for getMap-Requests
  • infoformat - choose the format for getFeatureInfo-Requests
  • exceptionformat - choose the format for exceptions
  • opacity - choose opacity in percent
  • visible
  • proxy
  • transparency
  • tiled - you can request a WMS in tiles, default is not tiled

Layer configuration

  • title - layer title from Service information
  • active (on/off) - enable/disable a layer for this individual application
  • select on - selectable in geodata explorer
  • select allow - layer is active when the application starts
  • info on - layer provides feature info requests, info default activates the feature info functionality
  • info allow
  • minscale / maxscale - the scale range in which the layer should be displayed, 0 means no scale limitation
  • toggle
  • reorder
  • ... -> opens a dialog with more information
  • name
  • style - if a WMS provides more than one style you can choose a different style than the default style

Add Elements to your application

Mapbender offers a set of elements. You can add the elements to your application. You have different regions (Toolbar, Sidepane, Content, Footer) to which you can add elements.

../../_images/mapbender3_application_add_element.png
  1. Choose Applications ‣ edit-Button ‣ Layers ‣ Button + to get an overview over the elements Mapbender3 provides.
  2. Choose an element from the list.
  3. Notice that you have different areas in your application. Make sure to add the element to a region that makes sense.
  4. Have a look at your application. Open your application from Applications ‣ Applications Overview

Now you should get an idea how easy it is to change a Mapbender application without changes in the code.

../../_images/mapbender3_application_elements.png

Examples for elements Mapbender3 offers:

  • About Dialog
  • Activity Indicator
  • Button
  • Coordinates Display
  • Copyright
  • Feature Info
  • GPS-Position
  • Legend
  • Layertree - Table of Content
  • Map
  • Overview
  • PrintClient
  • Ruler Line/Area
  • Scale Selector
  • ScaleBar
  • Search Router
  • SRS Selector
  • Spatial Reference System Selector (SRS Selector)
  • Navigation Toolbar (Zoombar)
  • WMS Loader

You find detailed information on every element at the MapbenderCoreBundle element documentation.

Try it yourself

  • add a Map Element to the content of your application
  • add a Layertree to the content of your application
  • add a button that opens the Layertree to the top of your application
  • add the Navigation Toolbar to the content
  • add a Copyright and change the copyright text
  • add a SRS Selector to the footer

User and group management

An access to Mapbender requires authentication. Only public applications can be used by everyone.

A user has permissions to access one or a set of applications and services.

Create a user

  1. To create a user go to New User or click the +-Button.
  2. Choose a name and a password for your user.
  3. Provide an email address for the user.
  4. Save your new user.
../../_images/mapbender3_create_user.png

Create a group

  1. Create a group by New Group.
  2. Define a name and a description for your group.
  3. Save your new group.

Assign users to group

  1. Assign a user to a group by Users –> Groups.
  2. Choose one or more users you want to add to the group at Users.
  3. Assign a user by Users ‣ Edit-Button‣ Groups to a group.
../../_images/mapbender3_assign_user_to_group.png

Roles

Mapbender3 provides different roles you can assign to a group.

  • Can administrate everything (super admin)
  • Can administrate users & groups
  • Can administrate applications
  1. Assign roles to a user by Users ‣ Edit your User ‣ Security.
../../_images/mapbender3_roles.png

Assign an Application to a User/Group

  1. Edit your application by Application ‣ Edit-Button.
  2. Choose Security
  3. Set permission like view edit delete operator master owner
  4. Assign a user/group to the application
  5. Test your configuration!
  6. Logout from Mapbender by Logout.
  7. Login as the new user
../../_images/mapbender3_security.png

Things to try

Here are some additional challenges for you to try:

  1. Try to load some WMS in your application. Try to configure your WMS.
  2. Try to create an individual application.

What Next?

This is only the first step on the road to using Mapbender3. There is a lot more functionality you can try.

Mapbender Project home

Mapbender3 Webside

You find tutorials at

Get involved in the project

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