Mapbender Developer-Sprint

One important question was the next release. The last year has seen massive refactoring and a lot of new functionality and finally Mapbender ships with an install script. But a lot of old modules, especially quick & dirty hacks broke during the refactoring. The more generically focused developers favor a clear cut and to remove old stuff. The more user-implementation focused developers favor a slower approach and keeping the broad set of functionality, even if it means to carry along old stuff. Many Mapbender installations are long lived and typically host metadata for hundreds and thousands of services and users who need the web mapping platform in every day work. This puts a lot of responsibility on the development group to create stable software and smooth upgrade paths. Therefore it was decided to release a bug fixed version 2.6.1 next week.

One important goal of latest development has been the leverage of jQuery and jQuery UI to pimp the Mapbender front end. Adopting jQuery and being able to include tons of PlugIns make Mapbender look and feel a lot more up-to-date and addresses the user's desire for sleeker user interfaces. Another very important improvement that came out of the refactoring efforts is much cleaner code which will make it a lot easier for new developers to get into Mapbender.

Therfore it was decided to step up a full version number in summer with new features and most importantly a clean and well documented API. A full version step also justifies that some older installations will brake at some points. This is an invigorating decision as it will allow us to be cleaner and meaner with old stuff. The new Mapbender API will make developing much easier and more fun in.

The first release candidate 3.0 will come out after the Bolsena hack sprint. It will include a thorough integration of OpenLayers, a completely refactored user interface and potentially even a connection to a metadata bucket with thousands of OGC services to choose from. But that is another story.

Have fun.

Read more about the Sprint at:

• https://www.mapbender.org/2010-03-05MapbenderDevelopment_Sprint
• Blog: http://www.osgeo.org/node/1009