crowmap

"Keep your maps clean"

UMN Mapserver, mapserver as it is widely called, is one of the most powerful opensource mapping servers available.

Despite it's stark power and the availability of a large number of connectors, the developers using UMN Mapserver are not too many. There are some reasons but the obvious one is the lack of a powerful and convenient editor to edit mapfiles, the configuration file used in mapserver.

Crowmap attempts to solve this disability by providing an easy-to-use, intuitive tool to create mapserver mapfiles.

It keeps your maps in a clean way.

Installation

Crowmap works as a local Web application. You do not need a Webserver to run the mapfile editor. Clone or download the latest version from crowmap master branch. Open index.html file using any of the standard Web browsers.

You can add mapfile objects and parameters using crowmap's intuitive interface. Once the mapfile parameters are entered, give a suitable name to the map file and click Create Map button. You will be able to download the mapfile by clicking the Download button.

If you want to open an already existing mapfile, click on the Open button.

The order of various objects of Mapserver including the layers can be changed using the Up and Down arrows in the dialog box. Use the Delete button placed next to the arrow keys to remove the objects.

Crowmap with Mapserver for Windows (MS4W)

You can use crowmap with Mapserver for Windows (MS4W) by following the steps given below.

1. The applications in MS4W package are in /ms4w/apps/ folder. Put the crowmap application in /ms4w/apps/crowmap folder.
2. Move the crowmap.pkg file in crowmap ms4w folder to /ms4w/Apache/htdocs/ folder.
3. Move the httpd_crowmap.conf file in crowmap ms4w folder to /ms4w/httpd.d/ folder.
4. Restart the MS4W Apache Webserver.

You can now access crowmap application in the browser by pointing to http://localhost/crowmap. If you use any port other than the the default http port, change the URL accordingly.

Known Issues

Crowmap doesn't support mapfile comments. The order of individual mapfile parameters is not maintained when you open an existing mapfile.