Introduction

The User portion of the documentation is focused on getting new users up to speed with all the capabilities of GeoServer. The Introduction contains background information on the GeoServer, and the How To Help section details how you can easily become involved in the GeoServer project.

Users wanting to get started quickly can go to the Users Guide, which contains cross cutting links into the full docs on how to get GeoServer up and running quickly.

Users new to OGC protocols will find interesting documentation on other sites, such as full blown web mapping courses and the like.

User Configuration

The full depth of user configuration of GeoServer is found under 2 Configuring GeoServer. The sections on 1 Service Configuration and 2 Data Configuration are focused on the web admin tool, and detail all the possible options. 1.1 Install GeoServer gives in depth information on how install initially, while 4 GeoServer Data Directory details an easy path to upgrade and distribute alternate configurations of GeoServer. And 6 GeoServer in Production Environment gives tips for setting up GeoServer to actual serve data, instead of just demoing a sample instance.

User Tutorials

The 4 Tutorials section contains a variety of step by step guides to get started with various aspecs of GeoServer. Some of these are linked to in the Users Guide, but some are not.

Beyond GeoServer

The final section is 6 Beyond GeoServer, which contains a variety information that is not directly related to GeoServer, but is likely quite useful to our users. This is the place in the documentation that is the easiest to get involved, and where users can have the biggest impact, since the core developers of GeoServer have an easy time documenting GeoServer itself, but the knowledge is spread more thin when we go beyond. The Clients section contains information about clients that are known to work with GeoServer. Please feel free to add any additional information, about experiences and how to configure the clients for GeoServer, as well as new WMS or WFS clients. Data Loading contains potentially helpful information on loading up TIGER data into GeoServere, tips and tricks that we've found when doing it ourselves. And Spec Explanations and Sample Requests contains information that is more generic to how the open interfaces such as WMS, WFS, SLD, and Filter work - information that is quite useful to new users, but is in no way unique to GeoServer. We're hoping to expand this section in to its own space, but for now this is just a holding section for spec related info that doesn't fit elsewhere. Finally 7 User Experiences is the easiest place for new contributors to make an impact, as we encourage informal experiences, and just links to GeoServer applications.

User Documentation Overview

1 Getting Started

• 1.1 Install GeoServer — There are three ways to install GeoServer.  The appropriate one depends upon the operating system or container (such as Tomcat) which will be used.
  • Binary Package Install — How to set up GeoServer with the binary distribution package (-bin version) for Mac, Unix, and Windows platforms.  This is used for manually installing the files and  running GeoServer as a Java program without a wrapper such as Tomcat.
  • CentOS (Red Hat) 5.1 Install — How to install GeoServer on CentOS 5.x (also valid for Red Hat 5.x), including Postgresql with Postgis support.
  • War-File install — How to install GeoServer into servlet containers such as Tomcat, Jetty, and Jboss.
  • Windows Install — How to install GeoServer on Microsoft Windows with the installer (.exe).
• 1.2 Add a Dataset — Configure GeoServer to serve up your data
• 1.3 Style Your Map — A quick tutorial on how to create and use SLD files to style your map
• 1.4 Configure GeoServers Settings — How to configure the various settings in GeoServer
• 1.5 Additional Data Formats — Extra data formats such as PostGIS, Oracle, DB2, ArcSDE and MySQL.

2 Configuring GeoServer

• 1 Service Configuration
  • 1 Web Admin Tool Introduction
  • Common OWS Configuration
  • Server Configuration
  • WCS Configuration
  • WFS Configuration
  • WMS Configuration
• 2 Data Configuration
  • 1 Namespace Config
  • 2 DataStore Config
  • 3 Style Config
  • 4 FeatureType Config
  • 5 CoverageStore Configuration
  • 6 Coverage Config
• 3 DataStores configuration details
  • DB2 DataStore
  • MapInfo DataStore
  • MySQL DataStore
  • Oracle DataStore
  • PostGIS DataStore
  • Shapefile DataStore
  • Versioning PostGIS datastore
  • VPF DataStore
  • WFS DataStore
• 4 GeoServer Data Directory
  • Creating a new Data Directory
• 5 Security subsystem
• 6 GeoServer in Production Environment
  • Configure GeoServer to run with a proxy
  • Dealing with native JAI
  • Deploy in Weblogic
• 7 Additional Options
  • Caching
  • Coordinate reference system handling in Geoserver
  • Environment variables influencing Geoserver
  • Output Formats
  • Windows Service Wrapper

3 Services

• 1. WMS
  • OGC SLD Explanations and Samples
  • Providing SLD to GetMap requests
  • WMS Layer-group option
  • WMS output formats
  • WMS vendor parameters
• 2. WFS
  • GML
  • WFS output formats
  • WFS vendor parameters
• 3. WCS
  • WCS output formats

4 Tutorials

Step by step guides covering a variety of specific tasks

• Common Query Language (CQL) Tutorial (unfinished)
• Coverages serving tutorial
  • High performance coverage serving
  • Using the ImageMosaic plugin
• Filter Function tutorial (unfinished)
• FOSS4G 2006 Workshop
  • 1- Install GeoServer
  • 2- Add a Dataset
  • 3- Test Capabilities
  • 4- WMS and Map Styling
  • 5- WFS
  • 6- Advanced GeoServer Features
• FOSS4G 2007 Workshop
  • 1 Installation
  • 2 Add new data
  • 3 Google Earth customizations
  • 4 Openlayers customization
  • 5 Optimizing WMS output
  • 6 Versioning
• Freemarker templates
• GeoRSS
• GetFeatureInfo templates
• Google Web Toolkit (GWT), OpenLayers and GeoServer
• KML KMZ Output
• KML Placemark Templates
• Paletted images tutorial
• Quickstart
• Serving static files within Geoserver
• SLD Intro Tutorial
• Upgrade Tutorial Binary
• Upgrade Tutorial War file
• User Tutorial Coverage
• User Tutorial Shapefile — Find the "Style:" field and click on '{color:orange}Create New SLD{color}'
• Video Tutorials
• WMS Reflector - Include maps on your webpages, the easy way — WMS Reflector is a convenience Wrapper for WMS that makes it possible to request maps with very few parameters.

5 General Information

• How to Help
• Introduction
• License

6 Beyond GeoServer

• Clients
  • ArcGIS — ArcGIS is the name of a group of Geographic Information System software product lines produced by ESRI. ArcGIS 8.3 and up includes support of OGC standards.
  • ArcView GIS — ArcView GIS is a Geographic Information System software product produced by ESRI. ArcView GIS supports WMS as raster themes through ARC3WMS Extension by Refractions Research.
  • BeeldBlad — BeeldBlad is an OGC Web Mapping Service 1. WMS client to be used in web pages. BeeldBlad (Dutch for "image sheet") is written in Adobe Flash and can therefore be used by all kind of browsers. It can be downloaded free of charge, so you can use it in your web mapping application.
  • deegree iGeoportal — deegree's iGeoPortal client is based on OpenGeospatial Consortium's Web Map Context, which defines map client status information. Apart from benefits of using an open standard, the employment of the Web Map Context specification eases the development of clients by relying on reusable modules and making extensive use of XML technology.
  • Drupal — Drupal is a content management system (CMS) that can be used to display WMS layers from GeoServer into Drupalized websites through Google Maps API
  • Fulcrum — Fulcrum consists of several Swing/Java2d based well-developed client libraries.
  • Geoar — Geoar is a GPL server side WebGIS client implemented in OpenLaszlo. Actually implements WMS service access (soon WFS).
  • Google Earth
  • Google Maps — OpenLayers is a free javascript mapping application that you can use to overlay maps from GeoServer on Google Maps, Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps, and other sources.
  • gvSig — gvSIG is a desktop based tool for handling geographical information. It currently can connect to WMS, with WFS support coming soon.
  • InterMap — InterMap is a portal based web map client, developed by UN-FAO and UN-WFP, focused on ease of use and low bandwidth situations.
  • Internet Mapping Framework — IMF provides a powerful framework for quickly setting up mapping sites. It is closed source, supports WMS and WFS-T, and is J2EE java-based.
  • MapBender — Mapbender is a GPL server side WebGIS client framework implemented in PHP. It is based on a user, WMS, WFS and GUI management and can be used as a framework to deploy geo portal software.
  • MapBuilder — Mapbuilder is a LGPL client-side javascript library for putting mapping in a web page, using an AJAX style of interaction
  • Mapserver — MapServer is an Open Source development environment for building spatially-enabled internet applications. It supports WMS, WFS and WFS-T (partially).
  • Mobile Clients
  • MyMaps — MyMaps is a java based open source WMS client
  • NASA WorldWind — WorldWind is an amazing 3d viewer supported by NASA. It is an open source project, and it uses all standard WMS calls
  • OpenJUMP — OpenJUMP is an open source GIS software written in Java. It is based on JUMP GIS by Vivid Solutions.
  • OpenLayers — OpenLayers is a pure JavaScript library for displaying map data in most modern web browsers, with no server-side dependencies. It supports layers.
  • PrimaGIS — PrimaGIS is a collaborative web mapping application for Plone. It is free software and licenced under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).
  • Quantum GIS — Quantum GIS (QGIS) is Qt based Open Source Geographic Information System built on top of GDAL and OGR.
  • UDIG — User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS is an Eclipse-based desktop application supporting WFS, WMS and WFS-T protocols, put together by some GeoServer alumni working at Refractions Research.
  • Virtual Earth — Virtual Earth is Microsoft's mapping solution, both 2d and 3d, all online.
  • worldKit — worldKit is an easy to use and flexible mapping application for the Web. Light weight GIS. It's a SWF based app, configured by XML, data fed by RSS. It support WMS.
• Data Loading
  • Load NASA Blue Marble Data
  • Loading GNIS data
  • Loading TIGER data
  • Loading VMAP0 data
• More documentation on OGC services
• Spec Explanations and Sample Requests
  • Feature Locking
  • OWS

7 User Experiences

• End User Tutorials
  • Apache HTTP Server
  • Creating a coverage from a TIFF with world file (tfw)
  • TileCache Tutorial
• Use Narrative
  • A Mapbuilder site for Lusaka
  • Clustering and Caching GeoServer
  • Geoserver and Google SLDs
  • My Geo follies
  • Parsing and using WMS capabilities with PHP — With basic PHP knowledge you can play with WMS capabilities and create list of advertized layers.
  • Watermarking WMS images with PHP

Users Guide

* User's Guide

• Users Guide include

Why not use OpenJUMP (www.openjump.org) as a wfs Client and deeJUMP as a WFS/WMS client ? Posted by at Feb 16, 2006 12:39

No reason not to, they should both work fine. Just needs a volunteer to try them out and write up some blurbs about them in the Clients section. Posted by cholmes at Feb 21, 2006 17:00

The '''Install'' wiki link in the '''User Configuration''' section is broken, points to non-existing page. Posted by mloskot at Apr 20, 2007 08:00