Print service and server-side requirements

[yvesm]

Implement theMapFish print server. Here's what needs to be done.

• Server-side requirements

• Install Maven (​http://maven.apache.org/download.html)
• Put install path (on windows : C:\Program Files\apache-maven-2.2.0\bin) on the system path (follow instructions at ​http://maven.apache.org/download.html for specific environment variables settings like JAVA_HOME)
• Test on a commandline : ' mvn -version'
• Create the war file : 'cd' to directory .../geoprisma/trunk/lib/externals/mapfish-print/; you should find a bunch of subdirectories there (print-lib, print-servlet, print-standalone) as well as the POM.xml file that Maven requires; the POM file there references the three POM files found in subdirectories, one of which (print-servlet) generates a war; the other two generate a jar
• At the prompt type : 'mvn clean install'; once you do that, you will see a whole lot of files being downloaded and ultimately you'll get a bunch of 'target' directories in the print-* directories
• Deploy the war file in a Tomcat container : in the .../print-servlet/target directory, grab the .war file and copy it to your Tomcat/web; if your Tomcat is running, you should see a new directory created in the web directory and you can use it as a url from your root Tomcat url, e.g.

  http://localhost:9998/print-servlet-1.2-SNAPSHOT/
  

where 'http://localhost:9998/' is the Tomcat root and 'print-servlet-1.2-SNAPSHOT' is the newly created directory. If everything went fine, clicking on the "Print" button at the bottom of the page should pop back a PDF file.

• Apache conf

• In the GeoPrisma Apache conf, create a reverse proxy to direct requests to the print server, e.g.;

  	LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
  	LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
  	LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
  	LoadModule proxy_ftp_module modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so
  
  	ProxyRequests Off
  	<Proxy *>
  		Order deny,allow
  		Allow from all
  	</Proxy>
  	ProxyPass /print http://localhost:9998/print-servlet-1.2-SNAPSHOT/pdf
  	ProxyPassReverse /print http://localhost:9998/print-servlet-1.2-SNAPSHOT/pdf
  

• Add this variable to configure the print server url:

      var printConfigUrl = '/print/info.json'; 
  

• GeoPrisma service implementation

• Implement a new service
• Implement a new 'print proxy' to that service
• Make sure the print proxy can use proxy classes to resolve service url and to modify the url string contained in the JSON object sent to the print server, e.g.

  	http://localhost:9998/print-servlet-1.2-SNAPSHOT/
  	
  	See baseURL. 
  	{
      layout: 'A4 portrait',
      title: 'A simple example',
      srs: 'EPSG:4326',
      units: 'dd',
      layers: [
          {
              type: 'WMS',
              format: 'image/png',
              layers: ['basic'],
              baseURL: 'http://labs.metacarta.com/wms/vmap0'
          },
          {
              type: 'WMS',
              format: 'image/png',
              layers: ['routes'],
              baseURL: 'http://www.camptocamp.org/cgi-bin/mapserv_c2corg',
              customParams: {TRANSPARENT:true}
          }
      ],
      pages: [
          {
              center: [6, 45.5],
              scale: 4000000,
              dpi: 190,
              mapTitle: "First map",
              comment: "The \"routes\" layer is not shown (the scale is too small)",
              data: [
                  {id:1, name: 'blah', icon: 'icon_pan'},
                  {id:2, name: 'blip', icon: 'icon_zoomin'}
              ]
          },
          {
              center: [6.9, 46.2],
              scale: 500000,
              dpi: 190,
              mapTitle: "Second map",
              comment: "This is a zoomed in version of the first map. Since the scale is more appropriate, we show the \"routes\" layer.",
              data: [
                  {id:1, name: 'blah', icon: 'icon_pan'},
                  {id:2, name: 'blip', icon: 'icon_zoomin'}
              ]
          }
      ]
  }
  

GeoPrisma will replace the url shown above by that of the print proxy and the various GeoPrisma proxy parameters. The print proxy will re-map the url to the one specified in the Apache conf file

[yvesm]

Someone is cooking a GeoExt ux component for printing : ​http://trac.geoext.org/changeset/1541. We should strive to make that happen.