Building OpenLayers Applications with QGIS

OpenLayers 3 is a powerful mapping library that can be used to create interactive mapping applications. Although it has a simple, intuitive and well-documented API, it requires knowledge of JavaScript to use, and no tools exist to leverage its functionality for more general GIS users. This presentation introduces an open-source QGIS plugin that creates web applications based on OL3, without the need of writing code manually. Elements of the web app are defined using a simple GUI, and QGIS GUI elements are used as well to define its characteristics (for instance, for defining the styling of layers or the extent of the view). The plugin can create different types of web apps, from simple maps used to browse data layers, to rich ones with GIS-like functionality, as well as others such as narrative maps. Apart from being an interface for writing OL3 code in a graphical way, it automates data deployment, and can import data into a PostGIS database or upload layers to a GeoServer instance. Altogether, these capabilities, along with QGIS data management functionality, allow to create a web app from QGIS in a very short time, as well as modifying or improving it later.