Book Image

GeoServer Beginner's Guide

Book Image

GeoServer Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

GeoServer is an open source server-side software written in Java that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards. GeoServer allows you to display your spatial information to the world. Implementing the Web Map Service (WMS) standard, GeoServer can create maps in a variety of output formats. OpenLayers, a free mapping library, is integrated into GeoServer, making map generation quick and easy. GeoServer is built on Geotools, an open source Java GIS toolkit.GeoServer Beginner's Guide gives you a kick start to build custom maps using your data without the need for costly commercial software licenses and restrictions. Even if you do not have prior GIS knowledge, you will be able to make interactive maps after reading this book.You will install GeoServer, access your data from a database, style points, lines, polygons, and labels to impress site visitors with real-time maps.Follow along through a step-by-step guide that installs GeoServer in minutes. Explore the web-based administrative interface to connect to backend data stores such as MySQL, PostGIS, MSSQL, and Oracle. Display your data on web-based interactive maps, style lines, points, polygons, and embed images to visualize this data for your web visitors. Walk away from this book with a working application ready for production.After reading the GeoServer Beginner's Guide, you will have beautiful, custom maps on your website built using your geospatial data.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
GeoServer Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Time for action – labeling polygons


We will now come back to our countries data set to add labeling to the countries style. While most of the properties are what we already saw in the labeling of points and lines, we will add code to make halos around our labels. Halos could enhance readability of labels:

  1. Take the Countries.xml file, make a copy to CountriesLabeled.xml, and then edit the new file in your text editor.

  2. Go to line 9 and replace the text inside the Name element with the following code snippet:

        <Name>CountriesLabeled</Name>
  3. Go to line 11 and replace the text inside the Title element with the following code snippet:

        <Title>Geoserver Beginners Guide: Countries with labels</Title>
  4. Add a TextSymbolizer element just after the PolygonSymbolizer. Inside it, define the feature field containing the text and the font name and style to draw the label:

        <TextSymbolizer>
          <Label>
            <ogc:PropertyName>NAME</ogc:PropertyName>
      ...