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Documentation Development Guide

Author:Howard Butler
Contact:hobu.inc at gmail.com
Author:Jeff McKenna
Contact:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com
Revision:$Revision: 8378 $
Date:$Date: 2009-01-02 09:29:01 -0800 (Fri, 02 Jan 2009) $

Background

The current structure of the MapServer documentation process is for developers with Subversion commit access to maintain their documents in reStructuredText format, and therefore all documents live in the /docs directory in SVN. The Sphinx documentation generator is used to convert the reStructuredText files to html, and the live website is then updated on an hourly basis.

General Guidelines

  • MapServer instead of mapserver, map server, Map Server, mapServer or map Server.

  • MapScript instead of mapscript, Mapscript, or map script.

  • PostGIS instead of postgis.

  • HowTo instead of howto or HOWTO.

  • Email addresses should be manually spam protected:

    hobu.inc at gmail.com instead of [email protected]

reStructuredText Formatting

  • All text should be hard breaks at or around the 80 column mark, just as the source code.

  • No .. sectnum:: in the contents directives

  • All external links should live at the bottom of your document, under the heading:

    .. #### rST Link Section ####
  • Always include the :Revision: and :Date: lines (as-is) at the top of your document, such as:

    :Revision: $Revision: 8378 $
    :Date: $Date: 2009-01-02 09:29:01 -0800 (Fri, 02 Jan 2009) $

Installing Sphinx for rst-html Generation

  1. install Python 2.X

  2. download setuptools

  3. For Windows users: make sure that the ‘C:Python2XScripts’ directory is your path

  4. execute the following at commandline:

    easy_install Sphinx

    ...you should see message: “Finished processing dependencies for Sphinx”

  5. inside the MapServer /docs directory, create /build/doctrees and /build/html directories

  6. inside the /docs directory, execute:

    sphinx-build -b html -d build\doctrees . build\html

    ...you should see a message: “build succeeded, ...”

    Alternatively, if you are on *nix, you can issue

    make html

    or

    make latex

    to build the documentation using make.

Reference Labels

:ref: reference labels
Label Title
agg AGG Rendering Specifics
antialias AntiAliasing with MapServer
arcinfo ArcInfo
arcsde ArcSDE
autotest Regression Testing
bugs Bug Submission
cgi CGI
cgi_controls MapServer CGI Controls
cgi_introduction MapServer CGI Introduction
class CLASS
community Community Activities
development Development
dgn DGN
documentation MapServer 5.2.1 Documentation
dotnet_compile .NET MapScript Compilation
download Download
dynamic_charting Dynamic Charting
editing Mapfile Editing
errors Errors
expressions Expressions
fastcgi FastCGI
feature FEATURE
filter_encoding WFS Filter Encoding
flash Flash Output
fontset FONTSET
format_types Data Format Types
genindex Index
gloss Glossary
gml GML
grid GRID
home Welcome to MapServer
html_legend HTML Legends with MapServer
iis IIS Setup for MapServer
imagemaps HTML Imagemaps
include INCLUDE
inline Inline
input Data Input
input_postgis PostGIS/PostgreSQL
installation Installation
introduction An Introduction to MapServer
irc IRC
join JOIN
kml KML - Keyhole Markup Language
label LABEL
layer LAYER
legend LEGEND
legend_utility legend
license License
linux Linux
lists Mailing Lists
management Management
map MAP
map_context Map Context
mapcontext_cgi Map Context Files
mapfile Mapfile
mapfile_tuning Mapfile
mapinfo MapInfo
mapscript MapScript
mapscript_introduction Introduction
mapscript_ows MapScript Wrappers for WxS Services
mapscript_tests MapScript Unit Testing
mapserv mapserv
modindex Module Index
msencrypt msencrypt
mysql MySQL
ntf NTF
oci Oracle Spatial
oci_install Oracle Installation
ogc OGC Support and Configuration
ogr OGR
online_resource_wms More About the Online Resource URL
optimization Optimization
osx Mac OS X
output Output Generation
outputformat OUTPUTFORMAT
pdf PDF Output
pgeo ESRI Personal Geodatabase (MDB)
php PHP MapScript
php_example By Example
php_install PHP MapScript Installation
projection PROJECTION
python Python MapScript Appendix
querying Querying
querymap QUERYMAP
raster Raster Data
raster_optimization Raster
reference REFERENCE
rfc1 MS RFC 1: Technical Steering Committee Guidelines
rfc10 MS RFC 10: Joining the Open Source Geospatial Foundation
rfc11 MS RFC 11: Support for Curved Labels
rfc12 MS RFC 12: C code Unit tests
rfc13 MS RFC 13: Support of Sensor Observation Service in MapServer
rfc14 MS RFC 14: Relative Coordinates for INLINE features
rfc15 MS RFC 15: Support for thread neutral operation of MapServer/MapScript
rfc16 MS RFC 16: MapScript WxS Services
rfc17 MS RFC 17: Dynamic Allocation of layers, styles, classes and symbols
rfc18 MS RFC 18: Encryption of passwords in mapfiles
rfc19 MS RFC 19: Style & Label attribute binding
rfc2 MS RFC 2: Creating line features and/or shapes using WKT
rfc21 MS RFC 21: MapServer Raster Color Correction
rfc22a MS RFC 22a: Feature cache for long running processes and query processing
rfc23 MS RFC 23: Technical Steering Committee Guidelines
rfc24 MS RFC 24: MapScript memory management
rfc24first MS RFC 24: MapScript memory management
rfc25 MS RFC 25: Align MapServer pixel and extent models with OGC models
rfc26 MS RFC 26: Version 5 Terminology Cleanup
rfc27 MS RFC 27: Label Priority
rfc28 MS RFC 28: Redesign of LOG/DEBUG output mechanisms
rfc29 MS RFC 29: Dynamic Charting Capability
rfc3 MS RFC 3: Feature Layer Plug-in Architecture
rfc30 MS RFC 30: Support for WMS 1.3.0
rfc31 MS RFC 31: Loading MapServer Objects from Strings
rfc32 MS RFC 32: Support for Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) Rendering Engine
rfc33 MS RFC 33: Removing msLayerWhichItems() from maplayer.c
rfc39 MS RFC 39: Support of WMS/SLD Named Styles
rfc4 MS RFC 4: MapServer Raster Resampling
rfc40 MS RFC 40: Support Label Text Transformations
rfc41 MS RFC 41: Support of WCS 1.1.x Protocol
rfc42 MS RFC 42: Support of Cookies Forwarding
rfc43 MS RFC 43: Direct tile generation for Google Maps and Virtual Earth API
rfc44 MS RFC 44: Restore URL modification of mapfiles to pre-5.0 levels
rfc45 MS RFC 45: Symbology, Labeling, and Cartography Improvements
rfc46 MS RFC 46: Migrate Website to OSGeo
rfc47 MS RFC 47: Move IGNORE_MISSING_DATA to run-time configuration
rfc48 MS RFC 48: GEOTRANSFORM Geometry operations
rfc49 MS RFC 49: Symbology, Labeling, and Cartography Improvements
rfc5 MS RFC 5: MapServer Horizon Reprojection Improvements
rfc50 MS RFC 50: OpenGL Rendering Support
rfc6 MS RFC 6: Color Range Mapping of Continuous Feature Values
rfc7 MS RFC 7: MapServer CVS Commit Management
rfc7.1 MS RFC 7.1: MapServer SVN Commit Management
rfc8 MS RFC 8: Pluggable External Feature Layer Providers
rfc9 MS RFC 9: Item tag for query templates
rfcs Request for Comments
runsub Run-time Substitution
s57 S57
scalebar SCALEBAR
scalebar_utility scalebar
sdts SDTS
search Search Page
shapefiles ESRI Shapefiles (SHP)
shp2img shp2img
shptree shptree
shptreevis shptreevis
sld SLD
sortshp sortshp
sos_server SOS Server
source Source
sponsors Sponsors
style STYLE
svg SVG
svn Subversion
swig SWIG MapScript API Reference
sym2img legend
sym_construction Cartographic Symbol Construction with MapServer
sym_examples Symbology Examples
symbol SYMBOL
template Templating
testing Testing
tiger USGS TIGER
tile4ms tile4ms
tile_mode Tile Mode
tileindex Tile Indexes
unix Compiling on Unix
utilities Utilities
variable_sub Variable Substitution
vector Vector Data
vector_optimization Vector
vim VIM Syntax
virtual_vector Virtual Spatial Data
wcs_format WCS Use Cases
wcs_server WCS Server
web WEB
wfs WFS
wfs_client WFS Client
wfs_server WFS Server
win32 Compiling on Win32
windows Windows
wms_capabilities Validate the Capabilities Metadata
wms_client WMS Client
wms_server WMS Server
wms_time WMS Time
wrapper A Simple CGI Wrapper Script

Regenerating the reference labels

You can regenerate the reference labels by issuing:

make labels

from the docs directory like when you are building the html or latex versions