This is the third video about creating a WebMapping application using PostGIS, Geoserver and GeoExt.

In the first tutorial of this series, you learned how to create a database in PostgreSQL / PostGIS and how to import data in Shapefiles format. Then, to allow displaying this spatial information in a webmapping application, we published it using Geoserver. GeoServer is an open source server for sharing geospatial data. Designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards.

In the second tutorial, we learned how to style published data in Geoserver. Styling specifies color, thickness, and other visible attributes used to render data on the map. This style is created in QGIS and exported as SLD format, then used in Geoserver to style GeoServer’s WMS layers.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a webmapping application that displays published data using GeoExt. With GeoExt, you can start from nothing and have a rich mapping application in seconds.

GeoExt is Open Source and enables building desktop-like GIS applications through the web. It is a JavaScript framework that combines the GIS functionality of OpenLayers with the user interface of the ExtJS library.

This figure shows the overall application architecture that integrates PostGIS, Geoserver and GeoExt.

To start with GeoExt, we are going to use a basic example from GeoExt homepage. This example shows how to design the application interface, display WMS data in the map and add a dynamic legend.

Programing requirements

The user programing requirements are HTML and JavaScript.

Documentation: