Anyway, lets start the review :

As far as I know, “OpenLayers Cookbook” is the second book directly related to OpenLayers framework written by Antonia Santiago Perez. “Packt Publishing” released the book like the first OpenLayers Book. As the name implies that this book is more than a teaching book. There are 60 recipes about the OpenLayers in 8 main chapters. These chapters are as follows :

1. Web Mapping Basics
2. Adding Raster Layers
3. Working with Vector Layers
4. Working with Events
5. Adding Controls
6. Theming
7. Styling Features
8. Beyond the Basics

Even there are some basic concepts, the advanced concepts are dominant in the book. If you are not familiar with OpenLayers and core GIS concepts like layers (WMS, KML, GML), I suggest you should first read the first book named, “OpenLayers 2.10 Beginner’s Guide”, otherwise you can dive into the book. The recipes in the book are directly related to business cases which you have to solve in your work days. Some recipes can be a life saver if your customer/boss wants different action in your web mapping apps.

The following recipes are the most liked ones by myself :

• Using the cluster strategy
• Creating a side-by-side map comparator
• Implementing a work in progress indicator for map layers
• Listening for non-OpenLayers events
• Creating a new OpenLayers theme
• Defining custom rules to style features
• Working with projections
• Creating a custom control
• Making an animation with image layers

I’m working with different mapping frameworks/APIs like Google Maps JS API, Bing Maps API, Leaflet, MapBox JS and OpenLayers in different conditions The most powerful and detailed framework is OpenLayers and this book is a good resource if you want to learn this powerful framework in details.

Please buy the book to support writer instead of downloading the illegal copies. This will courage more people to write this kind of books to support Open Source projects like OpenLayers.

PS : There is also another review for the book from GeoWebGuru.

• Life Cycle of Mashups at DSI – Ankara / Turkey – 29 May 2009 (Turkish) (Presentation)

• Enterprise Mashups in the Clouds – Abu Dhabi / United Arab Emirates – 28 Apr 2009 (Presentation)

• Google Maps and Enterprise Mashup Development (Workshop) – Ankara / Turkey – 21 Dec 2008 (Turkish) (Presentation Part-1 Part-2 Part-3 Part-4)

• Developing Web Based GIS Applications from the Google Maps Approach  – Ankara / Turkey – 21 Nov 2008 (Turkish) (Presentation)

• (ESRI European User Conf.) Developing Hydrology Mashups with ArcGIS Server 9.3 – London / UK – 30 Oct 2008 (Presentation)

• Developing Web Based GIS Applications with “Google Maps” or “Microsoft Virtual Earth – Trabzon / Turkey – 31 Oct 2007  (Turkish) (Presentation) (Paper)

• (ESRI European User Conf.) Web-based Water Information System Using GIS in Turkey – Stockholm / Sweden – 28 Sep 2007  (Presentation)

• ExtMap JS (ExtJS, Google Maps API and ArcGIS JavaScript Extension for the Google Maps API)
• ExtMap REST (ExtJS, Google Maps API and ArcGIS Server REST API)
• ExtMap OL (ExtJS and OpenLayers)

JS ve REST versions are mostly the same as Summit ExtMap, but OL version has some missing features which will be done soon. The website of ExtMap is also available as

http://www.geowebdeveloper.com/extmap

Please do not hesitate to ask any questions or suggestions related to ExtMap.

Examples of OpenLayers with IMS:

1- ArcIMS Example

2- ArcIMS Thematic Example

Thanks to developers of Avencia.