Now that we've seen the basics and made our first map with OpenLayers, let's take a step back and look at the big picture. OpenLayers is a software library based on an Object-oriented design principles, which means that it contains classes to encapsulate behavior, formal relationships between those classes, and standardized mechanisms for communication between objects. While OpenLayers contains many classes, there are just a few that form the foundation of the OpenLayers architecture. In this chapter, we will introduce these core components of the library and also two key concepts— events and observable properties—that are the basis for standardized communication between objects. Along the way, we'll use concrete examples and introduce some basic debugging techniques you can use to solve problems and explore the relationships between objects in a running application.
In this chapter, we will:
Illustrate the key classes that form the basis of the OpenLayers...