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Hello, I have come to some problems with initializing our Hapinoy Maps! The mapWindow software creates some files and folders when you export your shape files to mapserver. When you run it there are some issues, and it does not display a map. I will collect all the error messages, and what I think that needs to be added or created. Please, go to MapWindow, load our shape files (only .shp) that we got from Ron, To export, you will have to go to "Plug-ins" at top menu and select "Mapserver Generator" New window will open, and from there just input required information! Here you have to be very careful, I have come to so many problems, and I am not sure if I am doing it correctly. Please, try to do it and share your experience with this task! Bellow are some informations about mapserver and required files. Parts of a MapServer Application

MapServer generally runs as a CGI application from your http server. This hold true unless you are building a more advanced application with MapScript which accesses the MapServer API directly. MapServer CGI applications use the following resources: an http server like Apache or Internet Information Server, MapServer software, an initialization file that triggers the first view of the MapServer application (optional), a Mapfile that controls what MapServer does with the data, a template file that controls the the MapServer application's user interface in the browser window, a GIS dataset. MapServer is normally installed in the cgi-bin directory of the http server, and MapServer files and datasets are stored in the http documents directory.

The Initialization File

This file can be part of another html file, but for simplicity it may also be a separate file. The initialization file uses a form to send an initial query to the http server that returns a result from the MapServer. MapServer is stateless, and MapServer is started and executed each time a query is received, so this initialization file is just required to pass a variety of (hidden) parameters to the application. The initialization file is a regular html file, so its extension is .htm or .html. Alternatively, a hyperlink to the mapserver application can be constructed. It should pass the basic parameters required by the MapServer CGI application.

The Mapfile

The Mapfile defines the data to be used in an application and display and query parameters; you can think of it as the application's configuration file. The Mapfile also includes information about how to draw the map, the legend, and maps resulting from a query. Mapfiles normally have a .map extension. See the Mapfile Reference for complete documentation.

 Template File

The Template file controls how the maps and legends output from MapServer will appear on an html page; it operates like any other HTML file except that certain fields can be modified by the MapServer CGI. The template file allows the author to place the map and legend on the page, and determine what ways the user is allowed to interact with the mapserver application (i.e browse, query, zoom, etc.). Mapserver uses the template file and replaces keywords in the template file with information on its current state or the GIS dataset, to produce the html file that is sent to the browser. Since the template file will be used to create an html file, it is usually stored with a .html extension. See the Template Reference for complete documentation.

 GIS Dataset

Mapserver uses ESRI shapefile format as its default vector file format. Raster data can come in several different formats, depending on how MapServer is compiled. By default, MapServer supports geoTiff files and Tiff files with world files. See the Raster HOWTO for details. Other data formats can be used, but this is a little more complicated. The data files should be placed in a directory that is referenced in the Mapfile. Shapefiles can be optimized for use with mapserver using the shptree and sortshp utilities.

Architect
 We have a lot to do in short time! Please focus on your tasks, and most important work with your team member as well with members of other groups. If you have any idea, solution, or anything else that will contribute to this project, please share with Team. This is very challenging project, and I think it should be interesting for every one! Thank you! Damir Ibrahimovic

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email: dhz28@unh.edu