Book Image

OpenLayers 3: Beginner's Guide

By : Thomas Gratier, Paul Spencer
Book Image

OpenLayers 3: Beginner's Guide

By: Thomas Gratier, Paul Spencer

Overview of this book

<p>This book is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with all the information you need to get started with mapping using the OpenLayers 3 library.</p> <p>The book starts off by showing you how to create a simple map. Through the course of the book, we will review each component needed to make a map in OpenLayers 3, and you will end up with a full-fledged web map application. You will learn the key role of each OpenLayers 3 component in making a map, and important mapping principles such as projections and layers. You will create your own data files and connect to backend servers for mapping. A key part of this book will also be dedicated to building a mapping application for mobile devices and its specific components.</p>
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
OpenLayers 3 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introducing controls


Controls allow us to interact with our map. They also allow us to display extra information, such as displaying a scale bar with the ol.control.ScaleLine control. Before, in the previous generation of OpenLayers, version 2.x, some controls did not have a visual appearance. Nowadays, those elements, which do not rely on a DOM element, are called interactions like for example, touch interactions on mobiles. You can have as many controls on your map as you'd like. There are even some cases where you may not want any controls—such as embedding an unmovable map in a page, or showing a static map for printing.

Using controls in OpenLayers

Most controls are added directly to the map, such as the ol.control.Zoom control. By default, you can now attach a control to other elements such as the <div> tag outside the map.