Improvements include:

• Shiny UI for browsing the examples, including keyword search
• Improved consistency of display of examples
• Changing the examples on the live server to depend on a singlefile build — no longer need to wait multiple minutes just to see a single example.

I’d like to thank the original doc team workers from the FOSS4G sprint team led by Josh Livni to get the titles/descriptions for most of these in place, Tim for his work on creating the nicer UI and getting me to update the server to point to it by default, and all OpenLayers contributors for making the number of features we have so easy to demonstrate!

• Integration of the CloudAmber “Google Like” popups for advanced visual display of information in popups
  • Resulting improvements throughout all popup code, including autosizing popups to the content they contain.
• Improved panning of commercial layers like Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps
• Animated panning of the map, using OpenLayers.Tween support
• Layer Image transitions, for keeping images visible when zooming to allow smoother transitions
• Client side reprojection support using built in transformations for spherical mercator, or the proj4js library for other projections.
  • Support for reprojecting vector data layers
  • Support for reprojecting user-facing controls like mouseposition
  • Support for programatically reprojecting points and geometries
• Improved OpenLayers Styling, including:
  • OpenLayers.Style, OpenLayers.StyleMap, OpenLayers.Rule support for improved feature-attribute based styling
  • SLD read/write support
• Support for reading and writing multiple versions of WMC.
• Improved KML support, including KML styling support.
• Improved GeoRSS Format support, including GeoRSS GML read support.
• New ScaleLine Control for displaying visual scale
• New NavigationHistory control for map history navigation
• Localization/Better Internationalization support
• Layer support for MapGuide Open Source
• A number of new / improved handlers to make handling user interactions easier

A thank you again to all the people who helped to make this release happen.

Regards,

The OpenLayers Team

I’ve started extracting out vector layer behavior in a sandbox (that will be gone in 6 months or so). A simple example demonstrates the differences. See the old GML layer in action and compare to the new Vector2 layer with behavior. Both are pretty boring and do just about the same thing.

In the new design, instead of creating a layer like:

var layer = new OpenLayers.Layer.GML(”GML”, “gml/polygon.xml”);

The vector behavior example (v2-fixed-http-gml.html) does the following:

var layer = new OpenLayers.Layer.Vector2(”GML”, {
strategy: new OpenLayers.Strategy.Fixed(),
protocol: new OpenLayers.Protocol.HTTP({url: “gml/polygon.xml”}),
format: new OpenLayers.Format.GML()
});

Looks horrible, right? And the example name is so long and tedious as well.

The point is that the existing GML layer wraps up a bunch (well, a bit) of vector behavior into a single class. The GML layer requests all data once (that’s a strategy), it uses HTTP (that’s a protocol), and it parses responses as GML (that’s a format).

The new design separates strategy, protocol, and format. A strategy is tied to a layer (it has a reference to a layer and can only be used with a layer). A protocol is tied to a format (it has a reference to a format). You can swap out the format for a protocol (in theory) and you can use a protocol in the absence of a layer.

The result is that we can use these parts elsewhere. People can mix and match as they like. We can develop new strategies, protocols, and formats independently - assumptions about how they are integrated doesn’t need to be tied up in a layer.

Then, of course, we can make things convenient again. The GML layer can use a Fixed strategy, an HTTP protocol, and a GML format. The WFS layer can use a BBOX strategy, a WFS protocol, and a GML format. We can create strategies that automatically send updates as features are modified, we can create layers that use the AtomPub protocol, we can create layers that use a protocol to talk to client-side storage, etc.

OSGeo is pleased to announce that Google has accepted OSGeo as mentoring organization for the Google Summer of Code 2008 program. This program provides funding for students to work on open source projects under the support of experienced mentors. The projects participating through OSGeo are OpenLayers, GDAL, GRASS, Mapbender, Quantum GIS, MapServer, GeoServer, GeoTools, uDig, OpenJUMP/Degree.

OpenLayers being in this list means that we can accept student proposals for SoC Projects starting next week. We’ve got our list of ideas, but of course, we accept students proposing their own ideas as well!

If you’re interested or curious, please feel free to drop us a line, either on the Developers mailing list or by stopping by on irc.freenode.net / #openlayers.

So now, in addition to nice animated panning and smooth zoom transitions, if you’re a Google Layer user, you get flicker free panning.

Both enhancements can be seen in the transition example. Smooth panning is enabled by default, use the pan buttons to see the map ease to a new location. The map panMethod options lets you control the type of easing (or turn it off).

The layer transitions are controlled on a layer by layer basis. Open the layer switcher on the above example to see the “resize” transition for single-tile and multi-tile layers (zoom and pan to see the effect).

Thanks to Pierre Giraud (Camptocamp) for leading the easing/smooth panning effort, and thanks to Paul Spencer (DM Solutions) for taking on layer transitions.

An open geo-stack offers a flexible and feature filled solution for your web mapping needs. Store your data with PostGIS, set up GeoServer to publish it, and develop an OpenLayers based client for the browser. This tutorial will focus on these three core components of an open source geo-stack and will also cover architectures that cross the proprietary/open source divide.

If you’re interested in learning more about the complete stack of open source software you can use to publish geographic data over the web with versioning, interested in learning a bit more about the server behind some OpenLayers applications, or just want to refresh yourself on the technology around OpenLayers in general, this looks like it may of interest if you plan to be at Where 2.0.

the integration of Fusion; a flexible, extensible templating system that provides the ability to separate application presentation from its functional components

More information on Fusion is available from DM Solutions. Fusion uses OpenLayers as its mapping layer, and the recent addition of the MapGuide layer to OpenLayers trunk was as a result of the efforts put forth by DM Solutions to help contribute back improvements made to OpenLayers for its use within Fusion.

You can see examples of Fusion in action on the MapGuide Beta site.

Congrats to the MapGuide team on their success in using OpenLayers to build a great looking frontend for MapGuide maps!

Firebug Lite is an acceptable cross-browser solution. In OpenLayers, we include a patched version that works a bit better in IE. While nothing like a debugger, Firebug Lite provides simple command-line access outside of Firefox.
My new favorite for work outside of Firefox is Jash. Especially handy is the little bookmarklet (drag to your bookmarks). Open up a page with a map, click your Jash bookmarklet, and start exploring.  This is particularly nice for remote debugging.
>> map [object Object]
>> map.layers.length
3

Start typing map.getZ and hit tab for completion, see

2. getZoom
3. getZoomForExtent
4. getZoomForResolution

Hit Ctrl-X and mouse over the elements to see the DOM hierarchy. Enter jash.help() for more.

Our general goal was to get the trunk in shape for the upcoming 2.6 release. In addition, we took advantage of the dedicated time to squeeze in some new features. Andreas continued to work on his excellent style work, adding a new StyleMap class for use with vector layers. Erik pulled an all-nighter conjuring up beautiful popups. I tweaked event handling and Chris closed 372 tickets. Sebastian Benthall (TOPP) contributed numerous fixes from their slick collaborative mapping application, and Tim Coulter (TOPP) put together nice code for customizing vector graphic z-indexing.

The upcoming 2.6 release is looking even more feature rich than the last. Thanks to all who have contributed. Special thanks to Erik for initiating the sprint and to The Open Planning Project for hosting us in style.