Table of Contents for
OpenLayers 3.x Cookbook - Second Edition

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition OpenLayers 3.x Cookbook - Second Edition by Antonio Santiago Perez Published by Packt Publishing, 2016
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. OpenLayers 3.x Cookbook Second Edition
  4. OpenLayers 3.x Cookbook Second Edition
  5. Credits
  6. About the Authors
  7. About the Reviewer
  8. www.PacktPub.com
  9. Preface
  10. What you need for this book
  11. Who this book is for
  12. Sections
  13. Conventions
  14. Reader feedback
  15. Customer support
  16. 1. Web Mapping Basics
  17. Creating a simple fullscreen map
  18. Playing with the map's options
  19. Managing the map's stack layers
  20. Managing the map's controls
  21. Moving around the map view
  22. Restricting the map's extent
  23. 2. Adding Raster Layers
  24. Using Bing imagery
  25. Using OpenStreetMap imagery
  26. Adding WMS layers
  27. Changing the zoom effect
  28. Changing layer opacity
  29. Buffering the layer data to improve map navigation
  30. Creating an image layer
  31. Setting the tile size in WMS layers
  32. 3. Working with Vector Layers
  33. Adding a GML layer
  34. Adding a KML layer
  35. Creating features programmatically
  36. Exporting features as GeoJSON
  37. Reading and creating features from a WKT
  38. Using point features as markers
  39. Removing or cloning features using overlays
  40. Zooming to the extent of a layer
  41. Adding text labels to geometry points
  42. Adding features from a WFS server
  43. Using the cluster strategy
  44. Reading features directly using AJAX
  45. Creating a heat map
  46. 4. Working with Events
  47. Creating a side-by-side map comparator
  48. Implementing a work-in-progress indicator for map layers
  49. Listening for the vector layer features' events
  50. Listening for mouse or touch events
  51. Using the keyboard to pan or zoom
  52. 5. Adding Controls
  53. Adding and removing controls
  54. Working with geolocation
  55. Placing controls outside the map
  56. Drawing features across multiple vector layers
  57. Modifying features
  58. Measuring distances and areas
  59. Getting feature information from a data source
  60. Getting information from a WMS server
  61. 6. Styling Features
  62. Styling layers
  63. Styling features based on geometry type
  64. Styling based on feature attributes
  65. Styling interaction render intents
  66. Styling clustered features
  67. 7. Beyond the Basics
  68. Working with projections
  69. Creating a custom control
  70. Selecting features by dragging out a selection area
  71. Transitioning between weather forecast imagery
  72. Using the custom OpenLayers library build
  73. Drawing in freehand mode
  74. Modifying layer appearance
  75. Adding features to the vector layer by dragging and dropping them
  76. Making use of map permalinks
  77. Index

Chapter 1. Web Mapping Basics

In this chapter, we cover the following topics:

  • Creating a simple fullscreen map
  • Playing with the map's options
  • Managing the map's stack layers
  • Managing the map's controls
  • Moving around the map view
  • Restricting the map's extent

Introduction

This chapter shows us the basics and the important things that we need to know when we start creating our first web-mapping application with OpenLayers.

As we will see in this and the following chapters, OpenLayers is a big and complex framework, but at the same time, it is also very powerful and flexible.

Although we're now spoilt for choice when it comes to picking a JavaScript mapping library (as we are with most JavaScript libraries and frameworks), OpenLayers is a mature, fully-featured, and well-supported library.

In contrast to other libraries, such as Leaflet (http://leafletjs.com), which focuses on a smaller download size in order to provide only the most common functionality as standard, OpenLayers tries to implement all the required things that a developer could need to create a web Geographic Information System (GIS) application.

One aspect of OpenLayers 3 that immediately differentiates itself from OpenLayers 2, is that it's been built with the Google Closure library (https://developers.google.com/closure). Google Closure provides an extensive range of modular cross-browser JavaScript utility methods that OpenLayers 3 selectively includes.

OpenLayers 3 packs a smaller footprint than its predecessor and targets the latest HTML5 and CCS3 capabilities. The trade off, of course, is that legacy browsers will not be as fully featured (primarily, Internet Explorer lower than version 9). As the rate of modern browser adoption ever increases, this disadvantage will soon become a moot point.

The main concept in OpenLayers is, rightly, the map. It represents the view where information is rendered. The map can contain multiple layers, which can be raster or vector layers. Each layer has a data source that serves data with its own format: a .PNG image, a .KML file, and so on. In addition, the map can contain controls, which help interact with the map and its contents; these are pan, zoom, feature selection, and so on.

Let's get started with learning OpenLayers by examples.