Would you like to create your own customized distributions with gvSIG? Do you think that the gvSIG distribution should include symbol libraries by default or pre-installed additional functionalities? Do you need an adapted gvSIG in your organization?

Now we present a new plugin for gvSIG that solves those questions. Like any new plugin, the idea is to be tested by you and start using it from now.

We could say that this plugin “is not for all users”, but it covers a need that many organizations have: to have a customization of gvSIG with adapted features, like a default CRS at the installation, different than EPSG 4326, having it in a particular language, containing a series of OGC services used by the organization, including certain plugins, having concrete symbol libraries, etc.

This plugin allows that options and more; with this plugin you will also be able to customize features of gvSIG, like the name of the distribution or the splash that appears when you launch the application. And best of all, without having to develop any line of code and maintaining full compatibility with the official versions.

The first thing you should know is that this plugin is available for Linux gvSIG users. The add-on will not work from gvSIG in Windows, at least at this moment. That’s for sure, from your gvSIG distribution in Linux you can generate any current distribution: gvSIG for Linux 64-bit, for 32-bit Linux or for Windows.

Let’s look at 3 videos about how to work with this plugin.

At the first video we can see how to install it … nothing new … through the add-ons manager. It’s important to look for it at the “Testing gvSIG repository” because it is a complement in testing phase. At this repository we will look for the “Customize” plugin in its latest version (1.2.2-12) and we will mark it to install. Once installed, we have to restart gvSIG.

In this second video we can see how to configure and create the new distribution. Although it may seem complex … it is really quite simple, and you will see that in a few minutes you can create a customized gvSIG without difficulty.

In the “Tools” menu you will find a “Customize” submenu with 2 options, the second one allows you to edit the configuration file that will determine the characteristics of your “new gvSIG” …

… a new window with multiple tabs will be opened. Each tab allows you to configure a number of characteristics of gvSIG: the default language, the default CRS, the OGC services, …

In the OGC services you have to take into account that we can list the existing ones in our gvSIG, and delete them or add new services. In the video we have removed and added WMS and WMTS services (in the third video you will see the results).

We have also changed the default language, the CRS (EPSG 25830 instead of 4326), the application name(we renamed it as gvSIG Testing instead of gvSIG) and the splash that appears when launching the application.

You will see that there are other tabs that we have not modified (Proxy, WFS, WCS, and several ones related to scripting). The related to scripting ones will allow us to associate scripts to buttons, menus or the Table of Contents (TOC) contextual menu. Most of these tabs are under development and not necessarily working in this plugin version … but you can test it and tell us how it works.

Once the characteristics of the configuration file of our new gvSIG are indicated, we will select what add-ons or features we want to have by default. For that we will go to “Tools”, “Customize” and “Create distribution” menu. A window like the one in the video will appear, where we have to indicate (it is recommendable in this order):

• Working folder: The folder where the installation file of your distribution will be saved.
• Distribution id: ID Distribution name
• Online installer: gvSIG online installer, which is used to create the distribution. This installer can be downloaded from all generated gvSIG versions and it contains a basic gvSIG without plugins. There are an online installer for Windows and Linux. For example, you can download gvSIG 2.2 online installer from here: http://downloads.gvsig.org/download/gvsig-desktop/dists/2.2.0/builds/2313/. The files named with “lin” are for Linux, and with “win” are for Windows.
• Package set: we indicate the file that contains all the plugins or add-ons. In the same link indicated in the previous link we can download the plugins file for Linux (32 and 64bit) and Windows. They are the files with extension: gvspks.

Once the package file is indicated, gvSIG will start to read all the add-ons that are available and will list in the “Package set” tab. Here you can define which of these supplements you want to have by default.

In the example several additional symbol libraries and 3D functionality have been selected.

In this section we would also be able to add new plugins that were not in the “package set” file or remove any of the existing ones.

After the selection of plugins, we will click on “Create” button and the installation file will be created.

The video shows how gvSIG creates different files in the working folder. We only will take the installation file.

Now we have our customized gvSIG installation file.

In the third video we will see the results after installing it. In the first starting we see how the installation is completed, adding the selected symbols libraries. We check that gvSIG is installed with the selected characteristics: new splash, new title, CRS 25830, several WMTS and WMS by default and other pre-existing ones removed, new symbol libraries and the 3D plugin included by default.

Note: Changing the configuration file also makes some changes on the gvSIG that you have installed, so you can use this functionality to make certain customizations to your current gvSIG.

We are sure that this plugin will be very useful for organizations that use gvSIG. It shows, once again, how gvSIG continues an unstoppable progress of improvements in 2.x versions.