The Geospatial Administrator that is delivered with OpenCities Map provides expected flexibility to define and customize your OpenCities Map projects. This includes the ability to create specific workspace folders that could include custom folders for your project data.  As well, source files such as seed files, macros, symbology resources, design libraries and so forth can be defined under the workspace Files node.

Adding these resources provides you the ability to manage and maintain all project source files in a folder structure outside the scope of the OpenCities Map workspace. For example, these source files could be administered on a network drive which would protect them from unwanted edits and accidental deletion.

Since the Geospatial Administrator copies and distributes the source files to the users workspace [with the Export command], you can be confident that the base data for the project is correct.

This short article illustrates how to use the GSA to define and customize the base source files for your OpenCities Map project.

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Base Source Directory

When creating a workspace in the Geospatial Administrator, several items are defined such as the workspace name and description, the plot scales, the base source folder and the style of the Command Manager.

The Base Source Directory is the parent directory that contains the source files for the OpenCities Map workspace. This includes items such as design libraries, cell libraries, symbology resource files, seed files, design files and more. These files are arranged in sub-folders that are typical of any workspace directory structure such as: dgnlib, cell, symb, seed, and dgn.

When the workspace is exported from the Geospatial Administrator, the contents of the Base Source Directory are copied into the workspace directory which is created below the project directory.

 

 

Source and Destination sub-directories

The workspace Files node defines the base source files that are copied into the workspace directory when the schema is exported. 

Categories defined under the Files node define the source and destination directories.

 

The source sub-directories are expected to be found under the Base Source Directory when the workspace was created.

 

The Destination sub-directories are expected to be found under the workspace folder of the project.

 

 

During the export process, the contents of the source sub-directories are copied into the destination sub-directories. In the event that a destination folder doesn’t exist, it will be created.  It is important to note that during the initial creation of the Workspace and its folder structure, only the xml subfolder is automatically created.  All other folders must be defined under the Files node.  Be default, a new project will be setup to create the following Workspace folders: cell, dgn, dgnlib, seed, and symb.

 

Alternate destinations sub-directories

The Files node allows you to specify alternate destination folders by editing the Destination Sub-Directory column as shown. This is helpful when you are using non-standard folder names or when folders contain a variety of source files.

 

Customize Source sub-directories

Setting up a OpenCities Map project will require you to customize and build the necessary source files such as the seed file, design libraries and cell libraries. Upon completion, the files should be placed in their respective folders as defined by the Base Source Directory.  Due to the flexible nature of defining a project, it is quite possible to have resource files for multiple schemas in your Base Source sub-directories.

 

The File List panel is used to specify the name of the source file as well as the destination file. If desired, the source file can be renamed upon export. To do that, enter the new name in the Destination File column.

 

Ignore Source Directory

To specify a file that is not included in the Base Source Directory, enable Ignore Source Directory and prepend the source file name with the full path.

 

Add New File Categories

By default, the Files node contains the following categories: Dgn Libraries, Cell Libraries, Resource Files, Seed Files and Dgn Files:

 

If you would like to add additional source files to your project, add a new File Category via the Files option in the right-click menu. The resulting dialog allows you to enter the category name, and define both the Destination and Source directories.

In the File List tab, list the source files and enter the corresponding destination file names. In most cases the file names will be the same in both columns.

 

Housekeeping – Define Configuration Variables

As part of your schema housekeeping, macros can be defined to specify configuration variables for the workspace. For path variables, such as MS_MDLAPPS, this ensures that files are located in the correct folders for execution.

Tip: Include the trailing slash in the Value field.

 

When the project schema is exported, the new file categories and macros definitions will be included to build the workspace metadata. Using the File node to customize the source files available to your workspace is a great way to standardize your OpenCities Map projects and streamline file updates to your users.