What's new in 1.0-alpha0
As the version number 'alpha zero' implies, this represents a major step towards 1.0, but there will probably be one or two more alphas. Hopefully in rapid succession. Compared to the 0.8-series the system now a bit more unified and the core uses fewer objects. Lots of bugs have been fixed and the code has been made generally more robust.
The new version also merges in the RESTful configuration interface developed by Marius Suta as part of Google Summer of Code. Before 1.0 final we hope to have a JavaScript? userinterface ready to go. Technically the code should now be SRS agnostic, but this has not been tested for alpha 0, unit tests for anything but EPSG:4326 and EPSG:900913 remain to be written. This also means you can specify your own resolutions, and have the grid calculated based on that.
Please note that this release no longer supports .properties files and uses a new structure for storing files on disk, significantly reducing the number of file lookups. If a tile falls outside the layer bounds a transparent PNG is returned and the error message is written into the HTTP error of the response, thereby making it easier to use GWC with products that do not respect the bounds.
Here's the general idea if you want to use the alpha:
- After you have your layers configured, check out http://localhost:8080/geowebcache and click on the dynamically generated list of layers.
- You can use the automatic configuration by enabling gwcWMSConfig in WEB-INF/geowebcache-servlet.xml, it'll pick up a getcapabilities document. Don't forget to write & as & , and make the request version=1.1.0 or 1.1.1.
- You can also edit geowebcache.xml , which can be found in the resources directory. This will be the configuration file that GWC will depend on in the future. Please note that it may still change, so please don't invest too much effort in it.
- You can use automatic configuration, have it generate all the configurations for you and get them through the REST interface, then paste it into the geowebcache.xml. You'll have to edit geowebcache-servlet.xml to make that switch.
- To get to the layer configuration through the REST interface, see http://geowebcache.org/trac/wiki/api_proposal
- Seeding: For examples see here: http://geowebcache.org/trac/wiki/GWC_seeder
Please stop by http://geowebcache.org, #geoserver on irc.freenode.net or email the user mailinglist if you have questions, I'll be happy to help.
Looking forward:
- Need to add unit tests and verify that GWC is now SRS agnostic + that OpenLayers? agrees with the grid
- REST interface needs some testing, additional screens and documentation
- Depth-first seeder that spawns multiple threads automatically. This should now be fairly easy.
- Integration with GeoServer, need to add some hooks that automates cache refresh on major changes
- JavaScript? UI coming up, thanks to Nicholas at OpenGeo?
- We need to do some benchmarking :)
