Spatial Horizons

This post introduces OpenLayers as a easy way to embed dynamic maps in a web page. First-time visitors are encouraged to read our previous posts on setting up MapServer and CGI MapServer for background information.

OpenLayers is a javascript library for creating maps on a web page. In their own words,

OpenLayers is a pure JavaScript library for displaying map data in most modern web browsers, with no server-side dependencies. OpenLayers implements a (still-developing) JavaScript API for building rich web-based geographic applications, similar to the Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth APIs, with one important difference — OpenLayers is Free Software, developed for and by the Open Source software community. - http://www.openlayers.org/

Setting up OpenLayers is incredibly easy if you want to display data from other existing sources on the web. See their Quick Tutorial page for lots of sample HTML showing how to add a basic map in a web page. In this tutorial, we will focus on how to create a map that uses our own data from MapServer.
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