Adding a GWC Server¶

To publish a cached map, let’s return to GeoExplorer.

1. Make sure you’re logged in and working with a new map

2. Click the Add Layers button in the layers window pane.

3. In the Available Layers panel, click the Add a New Server button.

   

   Adding a new WMS server

4. In the URL field, enter the URL of our cached layers:

   http://localhost:8080/geoserver/gwc/service/wms

5. Click Add Server, to connect to the GeoWebCache server.

   

   Our WMS server endpoint

6. A familiar list of layers will display. The layers in GeoWebCache are the configured GeoServer layers currently being served by GeoServer. This list of layers is identical to both the GeoWebCache configuration page and the GeoServer WMS layer list.

7. Highlight the layers we added previously from the pure WMS, click Add Layers and then Done.

   

   Our layers in the GeoExplorer Available Layers dialog

8. Right-click on the earthgroup, and select Zoom to Layer Extent.

   

   Layer context menu

9. You should see a happy map of the world.

   

   Map with layers added

10. Click the Export Map icon.

11. Select your toolbar items, and then click Next to view HTML block used to embed your map in a web page.

    

    Export map dialog

12. Copy the <iframe> HTML. We will be pasting this text (or something very similar) into our GNN page:

    <iframe
       style="border: none;" height="400" width="600"
       src="http://localhost:8080/geoexplorer/viewer#maps/2">
    </iframe>
    

13. Return to your text editor and scroll down to about line 32. Above the previous iframe paste the latest HTML code. You should now have two maps in your GNN page: the first served by GeoWebCache, the second served by GeoServer.

    

    HTML source code with two <iframes>

14. Save your GNN page and refresh your browser.

    

    A happier web page

15. Get your two maps to roughly the same extent. Zoom and pan the first map, and then zoom and pan the second map. You might notice a rendering delay the first time you request a new area on the map that uses caching, but that delay won’t happen if you return to the same area. That is not the case with the original map, where rendering times remain consistently slower.

    

    Two maps, but only one is accelerated