Announcing: MapGuide Open Source 2.6 Beta 1

I think it's a fact of life that C++ is not the most ideal programming language to rapidly iterate with. Why do you think this comic exists? Due to Linux and its associated build systems conspiring against me for the past several weeks, my original planned release dates for MapGuide Open Source 2.6 have been naturally pushed back as a result.

Anyways, the Linux roadblocks have been mostly cleared (with some compromises), so I can finally say that I am pleased to announce the availability of MapGuide Open Source 2.6 Beta 1.

Here's a major summary of what is new in MapGuide Open Source 2.6

CREATERUNTIMEMAP and DESCRIBERUNTIMEMAP

MapGuide 2.6 adds the new CREATERUNTIMEMAP and DESCRIBERUNTIMEMAP operations to the mapagent to allow for creating new server-side MgMap instances without needing any .net, PHP or Java assistance.

Enhanced QUERYMAPFEATURES

MapGuide 2.6 includes an enhanced QUERYMAPFEATURES operation that allows client viewers to request selection query information that previously required several AJAX roundtrips to custom .net/PHP/Java code. Both AJAX and Fusion viewers have been updated to take advantage of this new operation.

New WebLayout

MapGuide 2.6 introduces a new schema revision for the WebLayout resource. This new version supports customization of common AJAX viewer features:

• Selection Color
• Image/Selection format
• Point selection tolerance
• JavaScript code to invoke on viewer startup

The current 6.0 alpha release of Maestro has specialized editor support for this new WebLayout.

New Code Samples

MapGuide 2.6 includes new code samples demonstrating MapGuide integration with OpenLayers.

New Stylization Expression Functions

MapGuide 2.6 includes new expression functions to support new stylization scenarios. I realised that I haven't covered this feature in my 2.6 showcase series of posts. So stay tuned if you want to know more about what's new here.

Updated Web Tier Components

MapGuide 2.6 includes updates for several key web tier components:

• PHP has been updated to 5.5.11
• Apache has been updated to 2.4.9
• Tomcat has been updated to 7.0.42

If you have PHP-based MapGuide applications, you may want to review your code for any compatibility issues. Similarly, if you have custom Apache configurations, you may want to review those configurations for any changes to configuration syntax.

And in case you're wondering, the versions of FDO, PHP and Apache we're bundling are using versions of OpenSSL that are not affected by the heartbleed security vulnerability, so you can rest easy on that front.

Fusion

In addition to what was covered here, Fusion includes the following changes

• OpenLayers has been updated to the latest stable version (2.13.1)
• The 5 templates now have more robust error handling
• Fusion now includes source maps for fusionSF-compressed.js to support browser debugging

Installer

Windows XP and Server 2003 support has been dropped. Main reason is the move to Visual Studio 2012 as the default windows compiler, where compiled code will not run on XP or 2003 without re-targeting support. But the bigger reason is that XP is end of life and Server 2003 is approaching EOL soon. No real point trying to support an OS that is EOL or is approaching EOL with the developer resources we currently have.

The PostgreSQL FDO provider is now enabled by default as PHP includes the required dlls for this provider.

In addition, the mapagent test pages is now its own installer feature. You can turn this feature off to reduce the attack surface of a production MapGuide installation.

Finally, we've removed the SVN metadata feature that was introduced in MapGuide Open Source 2.4. It was just too much of a burden to support this particular feature and based on an informal poll, it seems nobody even uses this feature!

FDO

• FDO is now 3.9
• Improved performances and bug fixes for the King Oracle provider
• New APIs in place to allow GML Features streamed as WFS features from MapGuide to be transformed to other coordinate systems

Linux

Nothing has changed here, we are still targeting Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and CentOS 6.x for our Linux builds of MapGuide, and 2.6 will still sadly only be 32-bit :-(

I really wanted to target the new Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release (that's what my past few weeks were spent on), but despite building without issues, it was woefully unstable and the time that would be spent trying to find out why is time that is better spent right now on getting 2.6 out the door.

So Ubuntu 14.04 support and the mythical 64-bit Linux build will be delayed once again to a future milestone.

Other Notable Changes

WFS GetFeature responses are now fully chunked and streamed straight from the server tier.

The Feature Source preview now leverage watermarks to inject additional useful debugging information

Selection transparency in the AJAX viewer is now respected

However, to maintain "compatibility" we retain the existing behaviour if the alpha component of the selection color is fully opaque (ie. FF) so an unmodified AJAX or Fusion viewer will have selections that look the same as before.

And of course, there are plenty of bug fixes since 2.5.

Download