Map viewers

[martinRenou]

It seems there are some choices on the front-end libs we can use:

• https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-js
• https://openlayers.org
• https://leafletjs.com
• https://deck.gl
• d3 (it has many projection types)

We should make a decision on which one we pick by default.

We will design jupytergis so it can use different viewers (a couple of default viewers, viewers swap-able or new viewers through plugins)

[davidbrochart]

We should also consider https://deck.gl.
The choice will probably depend on the needs of the project. While OpenLayers and LeafletJS should be similar for raster tiles, Maplibre should be more fit for vector tiles?

[martinRenou]

I edited the top comment

[brichet]

That would be really nice.
Do you think we should be able to switch the viewer on the fly ? That would probably mean having some kind of viewer registry.

[martinRenou]

Indeed! We could do that.

I believe that, for the sake of simplicity, we'll start with maplibre-gl. But we should leave the door open to other viewers and allow switching on the fly. We should also provide the proper lumino tokens to allow extensions to provide their own viewers.

Viewers should implement the proper interface (addLayer(), removeLayer etc) so we can use them without really knowing what's under the hood.

[brichet]

Agree with this.

The default layer should be a separate package that adds the default to the registry, like other extensions would do.

[mfisher87]

We switched to openlayers in #112

What's our current position on viewers? If we offer on-the-fly switching, many users won't know about the tradeoffs involved. Perhaps we can display a modal offering choices in the form of a feature matrix. Or perhaps we can warn about layers that aren't displayable with the selected viewer.

[martinRenou]

Or perhaps we can warn about layers that aren't displayable with the selected viewer.

👍🏽 UI indications and disabled buttons (not allowing to create specific layers) may be the way to go.