Is the WMS "GetFeatureInfo" request wrapped anywhere within the WmsOverlay class or elsewhere? I haven't been able to find anything so far, which makes me think I have to explicitly make the call myself, or use a different service.
WMS GetFeatureInfo Request
It always makes me feel uneasy when I ask a question that gets no replies. I am still in evaluation mode, so maybe I am missing some crucial concepts, and am way off target… it wouldn’t be the first time :-)
Anyway, I have an ArcGIS Server backend that is serving WMS and WFS (in addition to their native map services). I am currently using the WMS for rendering the map, and the WFS for finding and highlighting the selected object(s), clicked on a map or from a query. If I were able to implement GetFeatureInfo then I would not need the WFS.
Trevor,
Sorry for not getting a response. I will check to see what happened. We use an internal system that queries the forums and tells us what questions there are out there that have not been answered. I happened to be browsing and saw this.
The short answer is that we do not have this functionality implemented. I think we can in pretty short order though. We already handle WFS so if the results are similar then it should be fairly easy. Give us a few days and let me see if we can add this in before the next refresh around the middle of the week.
Please bump this post to keep it on the radar for us.
David
Trevor,
We have looked into it and though it is pretty easy to add the method to make the call there is one kink. The result type is very vague in the standard and can range from plain CSV test to GML to just about anything. There are optional parameters that allow you to specify the output format but the formats for general WMS server are not defined. We could return a string that you would then parse if that would be ok. I think ESRI’s version has some pseudo defined formats but then our stuff would be ESRI specific. We could also create a parser if you know the format you can support and we can share the source with you on our code community. We are here to help so let us know what you think.
David
Hi David, Thanks for your reply. It is probably not worth doing anything until I have worked out a clear path forward. I am still on an evaluation license. Ideally, I would like to use the FDO connection to ArcSDE once it is working reliably. Thanks for letting me know what is available.
Trev
Trevor,
There are some other things we could do for is if you didn’t want to go the WFS route. If you know the format of the GetFeatureInfo, like one of the esri formats and can send us a sample we would be happy to write a parses for your specific format. In this way you could stay away from WFS and we could reuse some code we probably already have around. We don’t mind a little work to get your business.
David
David,
The biggest problem I have is that one of the web applications I have to update is being used on Windows Mobile, and there are problems with the handling of JavaScript on these devices. One solution is to write my own WMS client although I haven’t got highlighting to work yet. In the longer term MapSuite is a great solution for us, but in the short-term I have a couple of hurdles to leap.
Thanks for your offer but I still have to sort out the Windows Mobile/JavaScript issue before I take up more of your time. The Mobile Web App will eventually become a true mobile app, but in the meantime, I have to work with what we have.
Trevor,
If you listed the features you HAVE to have we would consider writing you a very lightweight WMS client library. We have quite a bit of experience in this and if your requirements aren’t too bad this might even be quick.
David
David, thats fantastic! I’ll try and list the reqs below, so let me know if anything needs further explanation. Based on what we are replacing the following features would be required:-
1/ Draw a map with chosen layers
2/ Return features found at a point clicked on the map
3/ Highlight selected feature (was going to use WFS to do this, but it should be possible using WMS)
4/ Zoom/Pan/measure although I can implement these from map clicks as long as I can convert between screen and map coordinates.
5/ Search for feature by id/attribute (I can implement this at the back-end getting the id so it can be ‘selected’ as in #3)
6/ Zoom (and highlight) to specified feature by id.
Our WMS is from ArcGIS 9.3.1. I got most things working, but I never implemented the highlighting (#3). I was thinking I would have to have 2 overlays and draw the highlighting overlay by filtering out all features but the one being highlighted. This would mean having a second WMS with the ‘highlighting’ symbology.
Thanks again, Trevor
Trevor,
I used to test in IPhone Safari with maps.thinkgeo.com. It works fine. While I tested in windows mobile 6.1 browser, nothing displays on the screen. I guess that’s some problem of the style. We need to do some research on the compatibility between Windows mobile browser and OpenLayers map. It’s on our schedule already and we’ll work on it when we are available.
I’m not sure we can satisfy your entire requirements before doing our homework. We’ll let you know when we have some updates.
Thanks,
Howard
I'll put a purchase request in for an iPhone :-)
I found this the other day, not sure if it is of use: quirksmode.org/m/table.html
PS. I just tried downloading another mobile browser (SkyFire) and it works fine. Maybe that is the easiest work around until we port the application to the Compact Framework.
Trevor,
I was about to recommend that you try another browser for the pocket PC. There is an Opera based one and a few Firefox based ones.
From Mozilla: wiki.mozilla.org/Fennec
From Opera: opera.com/mobile/
Another from Opera: opera.com/mini/
Of course I am not sure if you can push a new browser down as part of your requirements but IE on a pocket pc is horrible! If so it will save us from writing a slim version as that will take some time as well.
David
David, Yes, that makes sense to me - I will mention that (other mobile browsers) as a work-around in my report on the evaluation.
Trevor,
Thanks for your understanding. Please let us know if you have any queries for web edition.
Thanks,
Howard