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.

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!

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!

We are happy to announce the release the OpenGeo Suite Community Edition 2.4.1!

It’s been a few months since we’ve put out a new version of the OpenGeo Suite Community Edition, but that’s not for lack of work. We’ve been quite busy not only adding new features, but melding in some of the great improvements that the Enterprise Edition received last month. Check it out:

Integrated styling and editing in GeoExplorer. We love the Styler and GeoEditor apps, but we thought that things would be that much better if we could integrate the styling and editing functionality directly into GeoExplorer. This means that now GeoExplorer can do more than just map composition and publishing. Much more.

Upload data through GeoExplorer. You can now upload single shapefiles and GeoTIFFs directly through the GeoExplorer interface, and the content will be loaded into GeoServer just as with the standard GeoServer Layer Importer. Yet another addition to the already powerful application, this will help you minimize switching between different applications for your data management.

GeoExplorer authentication. You wouldn’t want to give everyone the keys to the GeoExplorer kingdom, would you? We didn’t think so, so anything that requires server changes (styling, saving) now requires you to log in using administrator credentials.

Latest updates. Of course, all of the latest versions and bugfixes from our component projects comes standard.

We invite everyone to download this new version and give it a test drive. Please report any bugs to the OpenGeo Suite Community Forum. While the Community Edition is unsupported, we appreciate any reports from the field, and so will fellow members of our growing community.

Download the OpenGeo Suite Community Edition 2.4.1.

Last week MapQuest announced the addition of aerial imagery to the the tile sets they provide through their open tiles service. Today, we’re excited to announce a new Community Edition of the Suite that provides access to these beautiful imagery and OSM layers in GeoExplorer.

GeoExplorer is configured by default to allow the addition of these MapQuest layers. You can access them (along with other layer sources) through the “Add Layers” dialog.

The Open Aerial tiles allow you to layer your own data over a nice composite of imagery from NASA JPL and the National Agriculture Imagery Program (in the contiguous U.S.)

The OpenStreetMap layer is particularly useful in layering your own thematic data over MapQuest’s rendering of OSM data.

MapQuest make things easy for developers by not requiring an API key to use these newly available layers in their applications. Thanks to MapQuest for providing access to this data.

We’ve put together another release of the GeoExplorer application built with GeoExt.  This release includes some great new features that let you explore WMS layers from multiple sources and publish your results as an embedded map in any web page.

The updated “available layers” dialog allows you to choose from a list of currently configured sources or add your own.

In this case, I’ve decided to create a simple map showing fire locations and current weather conditions in the US.  For the fire locations, I added the Firefly service from the Geography Department at the University of Maryland.  To get a sense for current weather conditions nationwide, I added radar reflectivity data from Iowa State University Department of Agronomy.

Clicking on the publish button launches a new dialog for configuring the map export.  The result is an HTML snippet that I can include in any web page – like this one:

You can download the application archive to set it up on your own server, or try out the demo we’ve put up.