The GIS portal is a web-based visualisation system delivering data in a form that allows for rapid interpretation at a regional scale to support policy implementation, environmental management and relevant commercial uses.

The GIS portal was developed as part of the European Commission FP7 project OPEC.

The portal is composed of three parts. A web frontend written with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, a middleware written in Python, and a backend consisting of OGC WXS services.

Main JavaScript Location: src/
Javascript Libs: html/js-libs/
Our CSS: html/css/ - To be further split out into separate files.
Our Images: html/img/
HTML: html/index.html

The portal consists of two pages. The main page contains the portal itself and the other is part of the OpenID login system. The main page uses jQuery and jQuery UI as its main JavaScript libraries.

Communication between the middleware and the frontend is done with AJAX directed at URLs created by Flask.

Written in Python, the middleware facilitates communication between the backend OGC WXS services and the web frontend. This is done in two parts.

Location: cachingscripts/

The caching scripts can be used on a cron job store and update relevant data from any WMS or WFS servers listed in the server list. This saves the data being recreated by the client each time, enables the transfer of less data as only the relevant data is stored, stops the data provider getting swamped by requests, and enables faster response times.

There are two scripts, one for each service, wmsCapabilities.py and wfsCapabilities.py, as well as a server list to go along with each service. wmsServers.py is for WMS servers and wfsServers.py is for WFS servers.

Some of the data that comes back from the WXS services is not very user friendly, so two further files wmsLayerTags.py and wfsLayerTags.py help fill in and tidy up any missing data from the WXS services. These are manually configured and managed, but depending on your target audience they can be left empty.

Location: middleware/portalflask/

The middleware is required to respond to requests from the web frontend. The frontend needs to be able to store data for a user to be retrieved at a later date and needs to be able to process data for the client to create graphs or other items. This is where Flask, a Python micro-framework, comes in. Flask does a lot of the heavy lifting allowing for the quick development of server-side code.

For the storage of user data a REST styled architecture is employed with JSON being used as the intermediate format. To save developing an account and login system, OpenID has been used along with an SQLite database for simplicity.

1. Clone Repository
   First we need to clone the repository. git clone https://github.com/pmlrsg/GISportal.git

2. Install Dependencies The following dependencies will need to be installed by your package manager (for example, yum). Some of the names may be different depending on your system, we use Fedora. Some may already be installed. httpd mod_wsgi python-devel numpy netcdf-devel libyaml libxml libxslt-devel openssl-devel gcc We also need to install all the required libraries. This can be done in a few ways, the easiest using pip and the requirements.txt. This may need sudo permissions. pip install -r middleware/requirements.txt Finally we need autoprefixer from NPM, this will allow the portal to be run in IE9 and other older browsers npm install -g autoprefixer

3. Build JavaScript/CSS
   For production, JavaScript and CSS need to be minifed. This is done with a build script. This will build all the jsdoc3 documentation, minify the javascript and css, and move any images to the correct locations. python build.py --clean python build.py build

For development, you still need to run the build script but without minification.

python build.py --clean python build.py dev Notes
Java 7 is required for the build process.
Make sure you are in the same directory as build.py.
Edit config/config.js and change siteMode from development to production.

4. Create database
   Make sure you are in middleware/portalflask
   Run python manage.py syncdb as apache (or make accessible to apache) to create the database.

5. Tell Apache About The WSGI File
   In the Apache .conf file you need to add these lines and change any paths to match your system.
   Notes
   This step assumes you have already setup the wsgi_module for apache. If not you will need to install it using your package manager (ie. sudo yum install mod_wsgi).

    WSGIScriptAlias /service  "/var/www/middleware/gisportal.wsgi"
    WSGIDaemonProcess portalflask user=apache group=apache processes=5 threads=10 maximum-requests=1000 umask=0007
   
    <Directory "/var/www/middleware/">
        WSGIProcessGroup portalflask
        WSGIApplicationGroup %{GLOBAL}
        Order deny,allow 
    
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
   

Using SSL If you intend to make the portal accessible using SSL the WSGIProcessGroup mut be unique for the whole server; e.g. change portalflask to portalflask_ssl

6. Reload Apache
   Apache runs an instance of the application and does not auto reload on any changes. The easiest way depending on your setup is to reload the Apache configs and then touch the .wsgi file for any changes made in future.
   sudo service httpd reload - reload Apache configs
   touch gisportal.wsgi - touching the file will restart the daemon process
   Notes
   It is very likely that the commands for apache will be different for you depending on what platform you are using and your setup.

doc - location where jsdoc3 will create the documentation.
externs - used with the closure compiler to provide extra info.
html/static - anything that should be web accessible located here.
lib - libraries used for compiling, testing and documentation.
middleware
 cachingscripts - contains all the Python files todo with the cachingscripts.
 portalflask - contains the Python code for the data processing and data storage. src - javascript source along with some libraries that will be compiled with plovr/closure.
 libs
 windows

These are the exact steps we use to install the GIS Portal on a fresh Fedora 19 installation. You may have some of the dependancies already and some steps you might be able to skip (for eample if SELinux is already permissive).

sudo yum install httpd mod_wsgi
sudo service httpd enable
sudo service httpd start

sudo yum install python-devel numpy netcdf-devel libyaml libxml libxslt-devel openssl-devel gcc
sudo pip install -r middleware/requirements.txt

mkdir config
cp config_examples/* config/
mkdir html/cache
mkdir html/cache/layers
mkdir html/cache/openID
mkdir html/cache/openID/associations
mkdir html/cache/openID/nonces
mkdir html/cache/openID/temp

sudo chown -R apache:apache html/cache/openID/

# The WSGI code needs to be placed into /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
WSGIScriptAlias /service  "/var/www/middleware/gisportal.wsgi"
WSGIDaemonProcess portalflask user=apache group=apache processes=5 threads=10 maximum-requests=1000 umask=0007

<Directory "/var/www/middleware/">
    WSGIProcessGroup portalflask
    WSGIApplicationGroup %{GLOBAL}
    Order deny,allow 

    Require all granted
</Directory>


# Some of these settings may needs changing depending on your setup
cp config_examples/settings.py middleware/portalflask/settings.py

# Change OPENID_FOLDER to a path correct to your machine
vi middleware/portalflask/settings.py

python middleware/manage.py syncdb

SELinux must be permissive
setenforce 0

./clearcache

sudo service httpd restart

Enabling basic GA

Go to config/config.js and set gisportal.config.analytics.active to true and gisportal.config.analytics.UATrackingId to the tracking code of the project. Basic tracking is now enabled.

Setting up Custom Definations

For a deeper level of tracking custom definations needs to be setup. For this you need to go into the google analytics admin and select Custom Definitions under the property column.

Custom Dimensions Start by clicking Custom Dimensions and creating a new custom dimesion labeled Indicator Name.
Procede to make this list IN THIS ORDER:

• Indicator Name
• Indicator ID
• Region
• Interval
• Elevation
• Layer Style
• Graph type
• Confidence
• Year
• Click Location

Custom Metrics In the left hand panel select Custom Metrics and again make the following in the same order:

• Used in graph
• Used in layer

If you had no previous metrics or dimensions installed and you added them in the listed order analytics is now setup.

Follow this section only if you already had custom metrics made or didnt make them in that order:
Each custom definiation has a unique index.cm[0-9][0-9] for Custom Metrics and cd[0-9][0-9] for Custom Dimensions. Indexes can not be changed. The current config file was expecting the definition names to be next to certain indexes. Go over each custom definition key in the config file and change it the one in your analytics account.

Currently mapped names:
Dimenstions:
#cd1 - Indicator Name
#cd2 - Indicator ID
#cd3 - Region
#cd4 - Interval
#cd5 - Elevation
#cd6 - Layer Style
#cd7 - Graph type
#cd8 - Confidence
#cd9 - Year
#cd10 - Click Location

Metrics:
#cm1 - Used in graph
#cm2 - Used in layer