The OpenLayers Workshop will use guide attendees through the official Workshop material which provides a comprehensive overview of OpenLayers as a web mapping solution. The workshop consists of a series of modules covering the basics of creating an OpenLayers map followed by specific functionality such as vector data, building for mobile etc. We will work through as many modules as we have time for 😃. As the workshop material is freely available online, attendees can choose continue with the workshop modules in their own time if they wish to following the event.
Some experience of a programming or scripting language such as JavaScript or Python and basic knowledge of HTML and CSS will help greatly. The MDN Learning HTML: Guides and tutorials are a good place to start if you feel you need to get up to speed.
Attendees are expected to bring a laptop and have completed the workshop setup prior to the workshop.
In order to build an OpenLayers application we're going to use Webpack which essentially compiles JavaScript source code so that it's suitable for running within a web browser. Node is the JavaScript runtime that Webpack runs within on your PC. We'll also use npm which is a package manager that comes bundled with Node to install both Webpack and the OpenLayers package itself.
If you don't already have Node installed then the current LTS (Long Term Support) version will be fine. To determine if Node is installed, open a Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (Mac, Linux) and type node -v and press Enter. If Node is installed you should be presented with the version you've installed.
Work is on-going towards OpenLayers v6 which is focused on improvements to Vector Tile layers, how layers are rendered and performance. The workshop will use a beta release of OpenLayers v6.
You'll need a plain text editor for editing HTML, CSS and JavaScript files (.js). If you don't already have a prefered text editor try: