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This new cvs snapshot contains several important changes that lay down the framework for cool features I have in mind.

"Z" attributes in Layer tags have been eliminated and replaced by "NAME" attributes.

Polyline shapefiles are now supported.

The all-in-one invocation script, main.php has been eliminated and replaced by specialized scripts, jjfmapper-web.php and jjfmapper-cl.php.

jjfmapper-cl.php DOES NOT WORK YET. Don't upgrade if the command-line functionality of JJFMapper is important to you.

The Shapefile module now conserves memory by reading its files in small chunks instead of all at once. This allays the problem of PHP's default memory limitation.

Minor change to geoformat base class, to make extending JJFMapper even simpler than it was.

And other minor bugfixes. (0 comments)

JJFMapper now supports truetype fonts and gdf fonts. It will use FreeType 2 if available, or it will fall back to FreeType 1. Text can now be positioned on the map with an attribute LOCATION="x,y" in the layer tag. Text layers can now make use of variables, too. I removed support for color fades, but may implement that again some day. (0 comments)

The first of the two new features is support for Type one (Point) Shapefiles. There is lots of good data for the US in this format at <www.nationalatlas.gov>.

The other new feature is optional perl style regular expressions in two places. The first is projection fitting. So you can easily make one of my favorite maps, which is the so called "Four Corners". The syntax in the PROJECTION tag would look like this: FIT="layer99:/utah|colo|ariz|mex/i".

The second place where you can use perl style regular expressions is in the new DRAW attribute available for shapefiles. So not only can you fit your map to the Four Corners, you can tell jjfMapper to draw only those states and no others. Or you can load the NationalAtlas file that contains the coordinates for all of the cities and towns in the US, and choose to view, say, all of the Springfields. Incidentally there are not as many as I was led to believe.

This support for regular expressions is actually something I took out of the mapper back when I rewrote it in PHP. The Perl version used regular expressions for fitting, but I decided to use simple string matching instead for the speed. Now the program supports both. If the match string begins with a foreward slash (/), it will be uses as a perl style regular expression. Otherwise, simple string matching will be done. (0 comments)

A new example web application called Gauntlet lets you experiment with the syntax of the jjfmapper config file directly, as well as load presets. Intended for local testing only. (0 comments)

From version 14, the mapper will be invoked from the file main.php in the root of the install folder, rather than from jjfmapper.php in the lib folder.

For details, see http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1040991&group_id=103056&atid=633708 (0 comments)

From version 14 onward, the php script files will be in the subdirectory /lib instead of /jjfmapper. If you upgrade from version 13, you will either have to change your invocation script, or make a symlink pointing to the new location. The development version in the CVS repository now reflects this change. (0 comments)

01 October 2004. Changed license from public domain to GNU GPL. (0 comments)