User:Vaish.rajan/Weekly Updates

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Atlas America

This page summarizes various activities that have been a part of the development process of Geography teaching tool - Atlas America (earlier titled as "Geography with Environment Awareness Application").

May 26-June 1, 2008 [Week 1]

  • Installed MapServer,Openlayers,QGis .
  • Downloaded existing source code files from Curriki and configured paths to run in local server.
  • Working on damaged maps,and successfully implemented the same.

June 2-June 8, 2008 [Week 2]

  • Working on CSS issues to make the application cross browser compatible using hacks,successfully implemented the same.
  • Working on installer for Windows OS,successfully implemented the same.Needs more testing and final touch.
  • Studying Linux,to brush up concepts.

June 9-June 22,2008 [Week 3 & Week4]


  • Worked on Overlapping of Labels on Maps issues,successfully solved the same.
  • Worked on GeoRSS with OpenLayers and Mapserver to show up the tags(with information) on mouse hover from their respective XML files,successfully implemented the same.
  • Re-worked on the design issues and working on CSS to make it browser as well as resolution compatible.Best viewable on 1024x768 pixels.Successfully implemented the same.
  • Setting paths in all the *.html and *.map files to make them working when pasted in Program File(for the Windows installer issue) and made OpenLayers.js accessible from local Mapserver making the application Internet independent and very fast.successfully implemented the same.
  • Worked on Windows version of installer and its testing,successfully implemented the same(however scope of improvement prevails -emailed the same to my mentor for further testing and suggestions).


June 23-June 29,2008 [Week 5]


  • Worked on the Legend for Maps issues,for understanding different sections of maps,successfully implemented the same.
  • Test version of the Application (with Source Code) for Windows uploaded.Final v1.0 to be uploaded soon.Please download current Atlas.exe and Sourcecode from here .Following are the Prerequisites which also needs to be downloaded & installed.
    • MapServer - Download it from here.
    • OpenLayers 2.6 -Download it from here.Please note that OpenLayers.js needs to be pasted in the "htdocs" of MapServer in Program Files.Confirm this path before you proceed( C:\Program Files\ms4w\Apache\htdocs\OpenLayers.js ).


June 30-July 13,2008 [Week 6 & 7(still running)]


  • Final Atlas.exe v1.0 for Windows created ,will be uploaded on the links mentioned above asap ( which brings the basic functionality of the project for Windows to an end ).
  • Proposed few new Ideas as added functionality ,and soon will be implementing the same in coming higher versions of the application.
    • Video Search Gadget ( using Google Gadgets API ) for searching video tutorial resource on Web like YouTube,Google Videos and others.Creating a Video Library with featured videos.The feature will be of use when connected to internet.
    • More upcoming...




Interested developers can contribute preparing Installer for XO of Atlas America application which needs MapServer for Linux while no change is needed for OpenLayers except path configuration,details are mentioned here for help :
This is the download section of MapServer for Linux,which contains various versions and utilities.

  • Latest is mapserver-5.0.3 and mapserver-5.0.3.tar.gz can be downloaded from here.
  • Migration guide,when migrating from version 4.10.x (or earlier versions) to 5.0.x (i.e. backwards incompatibilities), as well as information on some of the new features.
  • Few Demos can be downloaded too, for 5.x and 4.x.
  • FGS Linux Installer provides a stand-alone environment with all the required software (incl. Apache and PHP and all required dependencies) to run MapServer and PHP MapScript webmapping applications on Linux.And can be downloaded here.


Please contact Nestor Guerrero-Mentor ( nestorgr[at]gmail.com) or Rajan Vaish-Intern ( vaish.rajan[at]gmail.com ) for any kind of assistance required.Thanks !