Annual report 2007

Mapbender

(the top 5-10 key items that the project or PSC accomplished this period)

increased the percentage of re-usable code by switching from script-oriented to object-oriented design
since 02/07: well-used bug tracking system Trac supplied by OSGeo (163 tickets up to now), supplement of patches for bugs.
since 03/07: well-defined release proceedings, releases on a regular basis (at least 4 releases per year)
12/07: optimization of Mapbender's load process: it now loads 4-5 times as fast.
since 04/07: growing HTML API of JavaScript and PHP classes, for example https://svn.osgeo.org/mapbender/trunk/documents/jsdoc/index.html
01/07: establishment of coding conventions, see http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/Code_conventions

since 03/07: regular, productive weekly IRC meetings, see logs at http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/IRC_Meeting
05/07: development sprint with around 20 participants
since 01/07: integration of several new developers outside of the core team (Michael Schulz, Marc Jansen, Marko Samson etc)
since 07/07: development of internationalisation techniques (in collaboration with italian developers)
multi-language documentation at www.mapbender.org

(any weaknesses in process, software, management, etc. that you plan to address or recognise need some help)

enhance international outreach, address more people outside Germany (or Europe)
develop an easy-to-use update routine
integration of OSGeo software, like OpenLayers
despite having an opportunity to host demos at Telascience, a machine with better connection to Europe might be desirable. The server is very slow here.

(list areas that could use some help from members and readers of the report)

Wiki: Request for an Account and add your web application to the Gallery or help on the documentation
Contribute your set of buttons to make Mapbender look better
Offer service around Mapbender, there is still a lot of commercial potential
Join development by throwing code over the fence or joining the core development team. We need people who have fun creating Web 2.0 style interfaces and have a hand for design work
Fund core development by sponsoring

(this is the motivational part that is meant to inspire readers to keep their eyes open for great stuff in 2008 :))

release of Mapbender 2.5, featuring i18n, KML support, optimized code etc.
stabilise and enhance input/output of standardized formats like WMS, WFS, WMC, GeoJSON, KML
continue to work on re-design to allow interoperation with state-of-the-art software
WFS FilterEncoding interface - this means that you can query geographic objects for spatial and attribute data
SLD Editor
Install / Setup script
Catalog connectors
Enhanced update functionality
new interfaces (badly needed, we still look like from the late nineties...)

Maybe (depending on interest - so ask for it!)