Announcing: MapGuide Maestro 6.0 Alpha 3

Here's the 3rd alpha release because I was tired of running my installed copy and keep finding out it's the previous release :)

This release has 2 main changes.

Firstly, the code base has undergone lots of breaking changes to support resources of unknown types. This was done to "future-proof" Maestro ensuring it can work with future versions of MapGuide that introduce new resource types. From the user-perspective, nothing much should change. If you're building applications with the Maestro API, expect some minor pain fixing up all the compiler errors.

In fact, let me extend that disclaimer to all iterations of the Maestro API that will be put out before 6.0 goes final. If an API looks crufty, we'll probably either tweak it, remove it or replace it and breaking applications as a result. As mentioned already, I intend for 6.0 to be my last major release, so if we have the opportunity to do things right (even if things break along the way), we should.

Secondly, in the similar vein of future proofing, the Map Group component of the Fusion editor has been re-designed. The UI now reflects the logical structure of the Map Group itself.

Adding commercial layers is now a case of picking the available layer types from the dropdown menu.

Note that the ordering of these items is somewhat important, as it reflects the draw order these items will be loaded in by Fusion. For all intents and purposes, the "MapGuide" layer should always be at the top and the external layer you want as the default backdrop should be the next topmost item after that. The other external layers can be in any order, as you will only ever be able to see one external layer at any time. Using this screenshot as an example.

OpenStreetMap with the Mapnik tileset, will be the default backdrop.

For custom external layers, you can use the Generic Layer option and edit the raw XML needed to initialize this custom layer.

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