FAQ

Some questions you may be asking ...

What is mapguide4j?

mapguide4j is a pure Java-based web extension for MapGuide Open Source. It is designed to complement or fully replace the existing MapGuide Web Tier.

In addition to providing the base mapagent and AJAX viewer, mapguide4j extends the Web Tier with additional functionality and services:

• A REST-ful interface to the MapGuide API
• (Planned): A modern, responsive version of the AJAX viewer leveraging OpenLayers and modern HTML5 technologies
• (Planned): A better/improved Feature Source Inspector
• (Planned): An improved MapGuide Site Administrator leveraging akka to provide a framework for MapGuide-specific administrative jobs and tasks (eg. Tiling, Bulk Copy, etc).
• (Hopefully): Support for additional OGC standards (WFS-T, WMTS, etc) and improvements on what's offered out of the box by MapGuide.
• (Hopefully): Fusion ported over to run on top of Play! with a compatibility layer for its PHP backend

What version of MapGuide Open Source will mapguide4j work with?

Currently, the only supported version of MapGuide Open Source is 2.4

Why Java? Why not .net or PHP?

The author's motivation for doing this in Java was for the following reasons:

1. To "dogfood" the existing MapGuide Java wrapper API
2. To get re-acquainted with the Java platform and programming language
3. To have such enhanced functionality available on both Windows and Linux
4. To be able to tap into the vast ecosystem of Java frameworks and libraries out there

Why Play! Framework?

The author wanted a Java-based web framework that was easy to "pick up and play" (pun sort of intended) without needing to edit a vast number of XML configuration files and without needing to understand J2EE, servlets, EJBs, Hibernate and other assorted 3 letter acronyms that start with the letter J. All that was needed by the framework was knowledge of the Java programming language and Play! Framework fits the bill nicely.

GeoREST does REST for MapGuide as well. What makes mapguide4j different in this regard?

GeoREST REST-ifies individual Feature Sources / FDO data sources. That is, you configure up one or more Feature Sources / FDO data sources with restcfg.xml that can be then accessed in a REST-ful manner with multiple output representations.

mapguide4j REST-ifies the http front-end to the MapGuide API (ie. mapagent). It is the realization of the ideas explored here

Does this work on Linux?

Currently un-tested, but the reason for choosing Java is so that making the move to Linux should be really simple.