How to make a layer render as a vector or add a vector layer to a map

In eVouala, a data source that is added to a map is rendered by MapServer by default. There's a way to make OpenLayers render its features directly as Canvas, in the browser.

Note: This method is not documented in eVouala, as it is not an API feature (it's experimental).

To enable this, you need to set the vectors property in the data source form. Here is an example:


{

    "attributes": [
    {
        "label": "Name",
        "name": "name",
        "type": "text"
    }, {
        "label": "Category",
        "name": "category",
        "type": "number"
    }],
    "browsable": false,
    "editable": false,
    "queryable": true,
    "vectors": "manual_load"
}

The value here is "manual_load", which tells the layer not to automatically load the features from the data source. By using this, Mapserver is no longer used to render this data source. The Platform will use a simple vector layer instead, with no features in it.  In that case, features will have to be added manually in the vector layer.  However, the style will still be configured by the map editor and will be transferred to the layer.

NOTE: Data manually added in vector layer WILL NOT be saved into the database.