The Project Steering Committee of geOrchestra is proud to announce the release of geOrchestra 13.09. In this sixth release you will find a number of new features, improvements and corrections. geOrchestra 13.09 is available at https://sdi.georchestra.org/.

This major release was made thanks to the support of the following projects : GeoPicardie, PIGMA, CIGALsace, GeoBretagne and CRAIG. Thanks go as well to all the contributors, testers, translators of the geOrchestra community. Indeed it is worth noting our community is not only working on the core software components but also by proposing addons, offering help and support on our mailing lists, organising geOrchestra-oriented events (as GeoCom) and trainings.

geOrchestra hold their commitment to sticking to GeoServer, Geonetwork, Openlayers, stable releases. These projects are progressing at an accelerated pace, making our task uneasy, but we are stimulated by the interesting perspectives emerging: W3DS, CSS styling, WPS ...

On the user's side

Those who like to draw sketches on maps will enjoy the new annotation module: one can draw geometries, place labels and tune their styling. This information can then be exported in KML. In geOrchestra 13.09 users will also have the ability to display their own files (Shapefile, MIF/MID, GML, KML, even TAB and GPX) in their own browser. The printing module can now deal with all the layers and create a PDF file which is more faithful to what the browser diplays.

Designed to tame the bulkiest catalogs, the viewer's data explorer was fitted with a simple syntax analyser: @producer fetches a producer's data, #keyword gets those data linked to a keyword, -exclude filters out files containing the word "exclude", etc. We believe this syntax is easy to be accustomed with, and the pertinence of search results gets greatly improved.

As an improvement to map interchange, context files (Web Map Context and OWS Context) can now be used even if saved in a different projection, and the validity of permalinks is now displayed.

Feedbacks from the community helped us improve ergonomy. E.g.: the new "apply" button on the style editor (SLD) makes it truly interactive as one can now visually test the result without closing the control window.

On the administration's side

A new ldapadmin module makes it possible for users on the front end to self register (with or without a moderation) and retrieve passwords. On the back end the module now offers a complete user- and group-management interface from the browser. A structure manager profile severs the link between user registration and structure, hence allowing a flexible attribution of permissions on tools and data.

Geonetwork underwent lots of updates to stabilise the significant evolution from the previous version.

On the standard and interoperability side

Both on the client and server side WMS 1.3.0, WFS 2.0 and CSW 2.0.2 are now the norm, still with the possibility of exploiting WMS 1.1.1 and WFS 1.0 for those services which don't support more recent versions. The WMTS standard makes its way to the viewer and the printing module, speeding up map rendering, but also access IGN's GeoPortal layers. Data extraction now comes with the associated metadata in the downloadable archive. Moreover extraction options to KML, TIF+TFW/TAB formats were added. Authentication from heavy clients was also improved.

On reusablity

The translation effort is going on: all the geOrchestra-related developments must allow internationalisation. Non-developers have brought their stone (e.g. the new Russian version for the viewer), let them be thanked for their contribution!

At last, additionnal global variables as a platform name or admin mail allow a more centralised configuration, as well as keeping separate modules.

For more on evolutions and update instructions, please refer to the version notes.

On the community side

As usual the sources are on free access with the bugtracker and all contributors' branches. The code (save external dependencies) is periodically analysed by Ohloh. The geOrchestra community is well and thriving!