Managing a large number of layers in OpenLayers/GeoExt and Geoserver

Question

I am building a web application to facilitate the handling of approximately 2500+ historic maps. I think it would be too difficult for our users to search for specific maps in an ordinary layer tree.

Is there some way to implement a layersearch in a GeoExt/Geoserver stack?

I'd be grateful for any idea how to deal with that even if it's not an "out-of-the-box"-solution.

Answer 1

What about providing the users with an intelligent search bar (that auto-suggests answers)? This can be easily populated with layer names by making an AJAX GET layer names request to GeoServer at page load. You could then include a few defaults and this 'intelligent' load list.

Answer 2

Thanks for your ideas everyone. I came up with a neat solution myself and wanted to share it with you all. In order to manage that huge amount of layers I use an ExtJS Grid Panel which gets its entrys over a GetCapabilities Request from my GeoServer. In addition to this I use a custom plugin which embeds a pretty fast search (or better filter) functionality (tested with extjs 3). Here is my code:

{
                        xtype: 'grid',
                        title: "Verf&uumlgbare Karten",
                        ref: "capsGrid",
                        id: "capsGrid",
                        height: 150,
                        viewConfig: {forceFit: true},
                        selModel: new Ext.grid.RowSelectionModel({singleSelect:false}),
                        plugins : [new Ext.ux.grid.Search({
                                    iconCls:'icon-zoom'
                                    ,readonlyIndexes:['country']
                                    ,disableIndexes:['pctChange']
                                    ,minChars:1
                                    ,autoFocus:true
                                    ,mode:'local' // to filter on local; for remote add mode:'remote'
                                    ,width: '20'
                                })],
                        bbar: [{
                        text: "Hinzuf&uumlgen",
                        handler: function() {
                            Heron.layout.items[0].items[1].items[0].selModel.grid.getSelectionModel().each(function(record) {
                                var clone = record.clone();
                                clone.getLayer().mergeNewParams({
                                format: "image/png",
                                transparent: true
                                });
                                var map = Heron.App.getMapPanel();
                                map.layers.add(clone);
                                Heron.App.getMap().zoomToExtent(
                                OpenLayers.Bounds.fromArray(clone.get("llbbox"))
                                );
                            });
                        }
                        }],
                        store: new GeoExt.data.WMSCapabilitiesStore({
                            url: "http://localhost:8080/geoserver/wms?service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=GetCapabilities",
                            autoLoad: true
                            }),
                            columns: [
                                //{header: "Name", dataIndex: "name", sortable: true},
                                {header: "Titel", dataIndex: "title", sortable: true},
                                //{header: "Abstract", dataIndex: "abstract"}
                                ],
                        },

In the end it looks like this:

Here are all the links you need:

The gridsearch plugin

Description how to use this plugin

OpenGeo Workshop that shows how to configure your Ext Grid