Worst on boarding experience ever!

[Donny Velazquez]

It looks like your app does some really neat things. But I can't make heads or tales of how to get this thing to work.

I had a simple file geodatabase I wanted to add to see what it would look like. So I added it to the project explorer, which 

by the way you bury the "Add Layer" option under a right click menu, which took me forever to find. Then nothing shows in the project window.

I look to see if theirs any errors in the Event tab, nothing. I have no clue what I should be looking for or doing.

[Runge]

Hi Donny,

It looks like your app does some really neat things.

Yes, MapSurfer.NET is a powerful tool, but unfortunately it lacks good documentation.

I had a simple file geodatabase I wanted to add to see what it would look like. So I added it to the project explorer, which 

by the way you bury the "Add Layer" option under a right click menu, which took me forever to find. Then nothing shows in the project window.

I look to see if theirs any errors in the Event tab, nothing. I have no clue what I should be looking for or doing.

By adding a layer, you just create an empty layer with attached data source, which is geodatabase file in this case. Next thing you need to do is to specify how your data is going to be visualized on a map. To accomplish this, you have to add a Style (see Layer->Styles), then add a Rule (see Styles->Style[0]->Rules), and finally add at least one Symbolizer to the Rule. MapSurfer.NET uses similar styling representation as described in OGC SLD/Symbology Encoding specification. Additionally, you might need to specify Max/MinScales at which your data are visualized. Once you specified the styling, you may then call Zoom to Extent menu (right click on Layer node).

Please check out a GitHub repo with sample projects. They might help you to get first impression.

[Heinrich Ferreira]

You know, this post was actually very helpful. Followed your steps and got a single layer working.  It would be nice if you could just post a single tutorial with screenshots to show step by step how to create an entire styled map with perhaps base polygon and road layers up and running.

[Runge]

Hi Heinrich,

I hope I can find some time in the near future to write such tutorial.
If you already got how this works and want to assist in creating tutorials please feel free. Here is a GitHub repository for that https://github.com/MapSurferNET/MapSurfer.NET-Docs/tree/master/usermanual/tutorials

Best,
Max