Re: [Geoserver-devel] Attaching meta information to output

[Chris H. <ch...@op...>]

Peter Giencke wrote:
> Guys,
> 
> In line with allowing Geoserver to serve real live files now, would it 
> be possible, while configuring a layer (typeNewSubmit.do), to "attach" a 
> file (ie xml/met metadata, preview graphic, disclaimer, etc). From an 
> end user standpoint, including metadata with a download would save them 
> (and us) a great deal of time spent poking around for metadata/etc.
> 

How would this work?  I feel like you'd have to include the extra files 
in whatever zip file you returned...

I don't think it would make sense to do this as the default, perhaps if 
people put on an extra parameter META-FILEs=true or some such, and then 
return the zip of the meta files and output.

Architectually it might make more sense to have it as a separate 
plug-in, where you would maybe go to a different URL to get the extra 
information tacked on.  I could see a GeoServer based application that 
is more of a 'data download service' - where you'd like auto-generate 
full datasets in a number of different formats for download, so that 
when people want the full set GeoServer doesn't have to go through the 
whole conversion process.  And then they can also get the 'live' views 
through WMS and KML and the like.

You could have it be notified of WFS-T requests, and generate new 
datasets then.  Could also do some fun stuff with caching.

We can submit this as a feature request for JIRA.  I don't think we'll 
get to it very soon without specific funding or contributed code.  But 
if anyone is interested in either let me know.  I'm happy to participate 
in figuring out how to handle it, as it is an interesting use case.

best regards,

Chris