Getting Help
Sources of Help
OpenLayers primarily provides help to its users via mailing lists.
Check here first! We maintain a list of questions that are asked. You can expand all answers and search for some keywords for your problem.
Trac search allows you to search existing bug reports, wiki pages, and changesets to search for words that might be relevant to your problem. If your problem is already known by developers, this interface should help you find out.
For people who are using the OpenLayers Library, but not modifying the internals. This is the place where most questions should go. Archives of list traffic are available.
For anyone who is modifying the code that ships as the OpenLayers Library and has questions about how to achieve something. This list is for questions like "How do I create a new OpenLayers.Layer class?" "Why is this functionality in OpenLayers/Layer/WMS.js not working after I modify it?" etc.
Tips for getting Help
In general, OpenLayers developers and users will be best able to support you when you do the following.
- Start by minimizing the problem: Make a test case that demonstrates the problem with as little code as possible. (Generally, starting from an example will help you to create a minimal test case.) This tends to help users solve their own problems in many cases.
- Describe your problem succinctly, with a clear question of what it is you are having a problem with.
- If possible, include a link to a live demo available on the web demonstrating a problem.
- If providing a link is not possible, provide the small demonstration of the problem, with all the steps to set up and reproduce the problem for someone who has only an SVN checkout of OpenLayers trunk.
If providing a minimal example of reproducible-problem code is not possible, it is unlikely that users/developers will be able to help you in a timely manner.
Foreign Language Support
If you need support, but do not speak English, please read one of the following pages for more information/suggestions:
