Kick-Ass Maps
With OpenLayers and Drupal
Brooke Heaton
Who am I
Drupal Dev at the
U.S. Dept of Transportation
With
Phase One Consulting Group
.
Primary role is site builder.
I play footsy with Stan Ascher.
Why OpenLayers?
Clients were asking for ways to map their content
Multiple maps from
legacy sites
needed to be integrated into a single multi-site
Maps needed to be authorable so that non-devs could manage the maps
Solution needed to be flexible, theme-able and accomodate different looks
We needed to go from...
<circle data-index="0" cx="86.57980008275545" cy="259.6543069745427" fill="grey" stroke="#505050" fill-opacity="1" stroke-width="1" stroke-opacity="1" r="4" class="jvectormap-marker jvectormap-element" data-hasqtip="0"></circle>
to this.
Drupally!
How we did it
OpenLayers Module
Entity with
Geofield
(Geofield plus
Geocoder Module
)
Openlayers Map configuration
OpenLayers Map with Projection and Base Layer
Vector Overlay Layer(s)
Map Styles
Map Behaviors
Panel Page or Insert View to display map
Achtung!
Getting started is half the battle
Download OpenLayers and the OpenLayers library with Drush!
Dependencies and requirements
PHP 5.2.x
Libraries
(>= 2.1)
Proj4js
CTools
Views
geoPHP
Step By Step...
ooh baby
Step 1: Create an OpenLayers Map View
Your content type has a location data field already, right?
Step 2: Select a Map
Maps can be configured at /admin/structure/openlayers/maps
Tip: Clone
default
and tweak it
Step 3: Create a Vector Overlay Display
This Display can be in a seperate View, if desired
Step 4: Configure Overlay Fields
Step 4: Configure Map
Center & Bounds
Projection
Base Layer(s)
Overlay Layers
Styles
Center & Bounds
Projection
Base Layer(s)
This can be a projection or KML file
Overlay Layers
These are View Displays - you may add multiple layers and switch between them
Styles
Background images, png images, font faces, lines etc.
Step 5: Check It Out!
Getting Schooled
Save yourself a P.I.T.A.
Install OpenLayers via Drush for the correct configuration
Start with a small data set and limit returned items
Be careful with rewriting fields in the Feature - don't reuse Title
Use a custom field for Description to add more information
Create a content type or entity define areas (e.g. U.S. States
Not all projections play well
Export/save your view
often
!
