Map renderers

This chapter describes the three map renderers available in GeoContent Plus and how to configure them.

Google Maps

Google Maps use Google Maps API v. 3 to display the map.

The Google Maps renderer.

Note

Google’s base layers are also available in the more flexible OpenLayers Maps and Olwidget Maps renderers. Please also note that there are some intrinsic limitations to the number of geometric features and the size of the KML file that can be shown with Google Maps (see: http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/mapsSupport.html ).

Warning

This map renderer works only when the website is deployed on a server which is accessible from the internet (it does not work on localhost) because Google must be able to retrieve KML data from your server in order to build the image tiles that are shown in the map.

Warning

In some occasions, we observed Google servers failures when a layer contained over 500 points, this is a limitation of Google Maps API and cannot be fixed by GeoContent Plus. If you encounter similar problems, try switching to OpenLayers base maps.

OpenLayers Maps

OpenLayers Maps uses plain OpenLayers renderer to display the map. It has more configuration options than Google Maps and fine-grained styling features. Bing and Google layers are also available as base (background) layers for this maps.

The OpenLayers Maps renderer.

Olwidget Maps

Olwidget Maps uses a renderer built on top of OpenLayers renderer to display the map. It has more configuration options than Google Maps and fine-grained styling features. Bing and Google layers are also available as base (background) layers for this maps. In addition to all OpenLayers Maps options you can activate clustering for points, this renderer also uses a different template for balloons.

The Olwidget Maps renderer.