GeoExplorer is a map composition tool that comes bundled with the OpenGeo Suite. Most people know that you can use it as a layer browser for displaying content not only from your local GeoServer but from any compliant WMS, including MapServer and Esri ArcGIS Server. It even supports hosted services like Google Maps and MapBox.

But, if you think you know everything there is to know about GeoExplorer, think again. Here are five things you may not have known about GeoExplorer:

1. GeoExplorer has built-in tools for graphical styling and editing

Back in the halcyon days of 2011, we had three demonstration applications: GeoExplorer for map composition, Styler for graphical styling, and GeoEditor for graphical editing. Eventually, we realized our users preferred one tool that could accomplish all of these without having to switch back and forth. So, as we refined and rebuilt GeoExplorer, we added in those tools that allowed for styling and editing.

The styling tool has a rule editor, where one can set options such as color, opacity, and shape. You can also set conditions for display, such as scale rules. The results are saved directly back to GeoServer and are displayed in real time.

With the editing tools, one can edit both the attributes and geometries of a feature by clicking directly on the map. One can also create new features and delete features as well. The results are posted back to GeoServer through WFS-Transactions.

Styling and editing require that GeoExplorer be deployed in the same container as GeoServer and that GeoExplorer be authenticated to this GeoServer instance. After all, security is very important in web publishing—you don’t want to be able to allow read/write access to any application in the wild!

Note: Styler and GeoEditor are still available in the latest version of the OpenGeo Suite, however, development has been discontinued and they will be removed when the upcoming version is released in a few months. While not linked from the Dashboard anymore, they can still be found in the same place, by default http://localhost:8080/styler and http://localhost:8080/geoeditor.

2. GeoExplorer allows uploading of Shapefiles and GeoTIFFs

While importing data to GeoServer has been possible for a while, you can actually upload Shapefiles and GeoTIFFs directly into GeoServer through the GeoExplorer interface. Just click on the Upload Layers button and select your files. Shapefiles need to be zipped but GeoTIFFs don’t. (While you can technically zip up a whole directory of shapefiles and upload them in one go, we recommend using the GeoServer layer importer, available from the Dashboard or GeoServer sidebar, for that operation.)

3. GeoExplorer makes use of server caching

Wondering what makes GeoExplorer so speedy? That’s because it uses GeoWebCache, the built-in caching server in GeoServer, to cache tiles on the fly. To avoid stale tiles, when a change happens to a layer in GeoExplorer (via styling or editing), a request is sent back to GeoWebCache to truncate the cache.

Don’t want to use caching in your GeoExplorer display? No problem. Simply click on the Layer Properties for the specific layer, got to the Display tab, and uncheck the “Use cached tiles” option.

4. GeoExplorer can export maps to PDF

With GeoExplorer, you can compose a map and click the Print button to export the map view as a fully vectorized PDF. While the tool is still a bit rudimentary for professional map publishing standards, it is often sufficient for basic uses.

5. GeoExplorer is built with the OpenGeo Client SDK

At OpenGeo, we not only build our own tools, but we use them as well. GeoExplorer is built using the Client SDK, a toolset (built on GeoExt and OpenLayers) for building web mapping applications using simple JSON for configuration. GeoExplorer is just one example of what is possible with the Client SDK. If you’re just starting out, we have a tutorial on building an app with the SDK.

What about you?

What cool things have you done with GeoExplorer? Let us know in the comments below, or by sending us a message on Twitter. If you haven’t tried out GeoExplorer, you can get it as part of the OpenGeo Suite.

OpenGeo Suite 2.5 brings some updates for our Linux users, including support for more Linux distributions and some new packages.

Support for additional distributions

We’re often asked about adding to our list of supported Linux distributions, and we’re happy to say that with the release of OpenGeo Suite 2.5, our list of supported Linux distributions has expanded. In addition to Ubuntu 10 and CentOS 5, our software now supports CentOS 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and 6.

If you’re running the latest release of CentOS or RHEL, simply download the OpenGeo.repo file (32 bit or 64 bit) from our CentOS 6 yum repository. Copy this file into /etc/yum.repos.d and install the suite with yum install opengeo-suite.

Note: This will install the Community Edition of the OpenGeo Suite, but you can register to get access to the Enterprise Edition packages.

If you use RHEL 5, the CentOS 5 repository now fully supports RHEL 5 as well, so follow the standard RPM install directions and you will be up and running.

New Packages

Along with updating packages to the latest versions for 2.5, the Linux repositories (both rpm and deb) now include a few additional packages:

• A Client SDK package (opengeo-suite-client-sdk) with everything you need to create and deploy web applications directly from your system.
• A gdal package to enable several additional raster formats to be used as stores in GeoServer. This package also includes the gdal and ogr command line utilities which are very useful for manipulating and converting data!
• MrSID support for the gdal package that enables GeoServer to use MrSID files as raster stores. Stay tuned for a detailed post on the new raster format support in OpenGeo Suite 2.5.

The Client SDK and gdal packages are included with OpenGeo Suite 2.5, so if you installed or upgraded your instance, then you already have them on your system. To enable MrSID support, install the gdal-mrsid package on your system using either apt-get install gdal-mrsid or yum install gdal-mrsid, depending on your distribution.

We hope you enjoy! Please let us know how the new distributions and packages are working for you.

We are excited to release a new version of the OpenGeo Suite! Along with the many improvements and bug fixes from the open source communities, this release includes for the first time a toolkit for developing and deploying applications powered by the OpenGeo Suite. This release also greatly improves our support for raster formats.

OpenGeo SDK

The OpenGeo Suite Client SDK provides tools for developing and deploying web mapping applications backed by the OpenGeo Suite, like GeoExplorer. It provides a plugin-based architecture leveraging OpenLayers, Ext JS, and GeoExt that allows you to build powerful web mapping applications by providing a JSON configuration. Those of you familiar with our GXP workshop know all about developing applications with the OpenGeo Client SDK. For more information, check out our tutorial on developing applications with the OpenGeo SDK.

Better raster support with GDAL

The OpenGeo Suite now comes with support for publishing data from many formats supported by the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL), including DTED, EHdr, AIG, ENVIHdr, and many more. MrSID is available as well to those with a license for LizardTech’s decoding software development kit.

Other noteworthy changes

As mentioned in the release notes, the OpenGeo Suite 2.5 also includes a number of noteworthy changes, among them:

• Improvements to the GeoServer Layer Importer, including Oracle and SQL Server options as well as support for importing ZIP files containing multiple Shapefiles.
• Options in GeoServer to allow layers to be available but not advertised as well as options for producing lenient capabilities documents to prevent invalid XML output from misconfigured layers.
• Better WFS output from GeoServer, including paging and sorting in the WFS capabilities as well as user-defined WFS GetFeatureInfo output.
• Better 3D support in GeoServer and GeoTools, including proper handling of read/write of 3D polygons from Oracle and proper handling of 3D data in GML3 encoding

Try it!

Download our free trial to try out all of these new features and contact us to purchase the support you need to put your project into production.

We wanted to thank our friends (and clients!) at the SFMTA for their upgrade announcement to SFpark.org.  SFpark uses geospatial and sensory technology to collect and distribute real-time parking availability information to drivers. It uses this data to regularly update meter and garage pricing to ensure parking availability, providing for safer and clearer streets. This project is a bold step forward in innovative parking policies and technological integration. The OpenGeo Suite supports SFpark by delivering assets to a robust web mapping application, the primary user interface that we helped build.

This project has gained national attention and put the SFMTA in the spotlight as a forward looking innovator aiming to improve the status quo – values that OpenGeo respects and shares. The SFMTA has been a great client and we look forward to our continued partnership.

We are excited to release a new version of the OpenGeo Suite! In order to capture the many improvements and bug fixes happening in the open source community, we are moving toward a more rapid release cycle. For example, GeoServer now has JDBC datastore session startup/teardown SQL comments, as well as support for paletted PNG images with alpha transparency.

In GeoExplorer (which really is pretty amazing, if you haven’t seen it recently) there is now smoother tile display, including fade-in. Also, the map legend has now been integrated directly into the layer tree. Finally, we have changed the default base layer to be MapQest OSM, moving away from Google (though Google base layers are still available).

All of these new features are available in the Community Edition, Enterprise Edition (which includes a free 30 day trial of our support), and all Cloud Editions! Try any version you’d like and contact us to purchase the support you need to put your project into production!

Participants
Representatives from the following companies have confirmed attendance and sponsorship:

• OpenGeo
• Camptocamp
• terrestris
• Mapgears

These organizations have provided core developers for GeoExt 1.x and have experience as service providers building applications with ExtJS 4. We’re excited to work with them again as we help develop GeoExt 2.0

Sponsor search
A week-long gathering of eight developers calls for a budget of $52,000. This covers travel, accommodations and partly the developers themselves. While much of this cost is being borne by the participating organizations we have not been able to close the gap.

We are looking for sponsors to help. Sponsors will be named explicitly and are encouraged  to input their priorities for desired functionality in GeoExt 2.0.

Call for sponsorship
The participating organizations would like to invite all organizations and users utilizing GeoExt to sponsor the code sprint. Becoming a sponsor ensures the benefits from the new functions that will be implemented.

If you have questions or interest in sponsoring the code sprint please contact us at inquiry@opengeo.org

The OpenGeo team is excited to announce the release of OpenGeo Suite 2.4.4. This is the first new version in a few months so there have been lots of stability improvements and updates.

GeoServer incorporates the new features from the recently released GeoServer 2.1.3. It now has Basic HTTP authentication for cascaded WMS servers, a feature that has been asked for by a number of our clients. GeoServer also has support for non-advertised layers, with layers configured and active, yet not publicized in the capabilities documents. We’ve also incorporated the Web Processing Service (WPS) extension and, for our European friends, enhanced the GeoServer INSPIRE extension to better support View Service.

The GeoServer-embedded GeoWebCache now has a significantly improved UI, exposing many options previously only configurable via a text editor. It’s now possible to add a new layer, configure tile size, view disk quotas, enable GWC services and cache formats.

GeoExplorer has improved stability when deployed under Glassfish and WebSphere containers. Logout functionality has now been exposed, based on many user requests. In general, GeoExplorer now has a faster loading of JavaScript resources.

The OpenGeo Suite is and continues to be 100% open source and we’ve migrated the source code onto GitHub to improve our development process and make it easier for anyone to check out our source code.

We invite everyone to check out our new release—register for a trial of the Enterprise Edition or download the free (but unsupported) Community Edition. If you’re looking for support, unlimited bug fixes, access to core developers, updates, telephone support, and even custom development hours, we invite you to consider becoming an OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition client.

Thanks to everyone who submitted bug reports and feature requests. Thanks as well to all developers involved in our component projects. Finally, thanks to our current Enterprise Edition clients, who enable to us to continue to develop the best geospatial software.

The OpenGeo Suite team has migrated all of our source code over to Git from Subversion, and we are now hosting the code on GitHub. This follows the trend of lots of open source software projects toward a distributed version control system.

Switching from Subversion to Git has all sorts of benefits for the development team, as well for anyone interested in playing with the code. There are numerous sites that detail the advantages of Git (we particularly like this one), but it will allow us to more easily incorporate features for our clients, manage multiple release streams, and work simultaneously without breaking development for everyone else. As the client base of the OpenGeo Suite grows (and as more and more people download the free Community Edition) this change has been a long time in coming.

You can also visit OpenGeo’s main GitHub repository as well as the main repositories for GeoExplorer, GXP, and more. Please fork the code and play around. If you have patches, feel free to send us a pull request. While we can’t guarantee that all patches will be accepted, we value every suggestion we receive.

If you have thoughts about our svn to git conversion, we’d love to hear about in the comments section. Though please, no x-is-better-than-y wars. Each one of us is correct!

Last month, a few of us at OpenGeo attended the GEOINT 2011 Symposium in San Antonio where, for the first time, open source received some serious attention. There were two panels on open source technologies and multiple keynote addresses highlighting the benefits of open source and the need to reduce software licensing costs.

Our COO, Eddie Pickle, sat on a panel moderated by John Scott, Co-Chairman of RadiantBlue and Dr. Christopher Tucker, USGIF Board Member. He used the opportunity to offer his thoughts on open source geospatial technologies and discuss open source adoption. Eddie highlighted the TsuDAT project as an example of a collaborative, open source GeoNode application. Zoom ahead to 38:00 minutes in the video below to see Eddie discuss OpenGeo’s experiences developing, deploying, and supporting open source solutions.

The video also offers some interesting perspectives from other panelists who discussed their experiences implementing and using open source technologies. Questions start at 58:00 minutes, enjoy.