Search and Show My Layer Settings

Owned by Kim Stimpson
Last updated: 14 Jun, 2018
3 min read

The Search and Show My options may be found clicking on a Layer.

If you do not wish to perform any Search or Show My functionality then select the Buffer Search entry and enter a 0 in the Buffer Value. 

Buffer Search

Select this radio button if you wish to perform a buffer search on a layer. A Buffer search is generally used to answer a question like "Is my property within 100m of a conservation area?". It basically creates a buffer (search radius) around your selected address, based on the value that you enter. Then when selected, it will return all the results within the buffer. This type of search is often used in My House / My Nearest.

Buffer Value

This defines the search radius for the layer. If this entry is zero or blank then you will not be able to perform a Buffer Search on this layer.

Find Nearest

Selecting this radio button will enable the user to perform a Find Nearest function on a layer. A Find Nearest search is similar to a Buffer search since it returns results based on a selected distance from a chosen address, only the results returned are ordered by distance and only the nearest specified number of results are returned. This type of search is often used in My House / My Nearest as you may wish to find your nearest schools, pharmacy, doctor's surgery for instance.

Distance

This defines the maximum distance to search from the currently set position.

Results

This defines the maximum number of results to be returned within the previously specified distance.

In order for the Show on map link to work, when you have specified Find Nearest for the Layer in your My House / My Nearest Map Source, a Layer with the same Layer Name must exist in your default My Maps Map Source.

Show My

Select this radio button if you want to be able to perform a point in polygon search on the layer. This will only return one result for the polygon in which your chosen address is located e.g. Show my Councillor. This type of search is often used in My House.

If you select this option then you must have an entry for TOLERANCEUNITS METERS for the LAYER in the .MAP file. If there is no entry the default TOLERANCEUNITS are PIXELS and this can result in multiple results being returned. Please see the How-To Be Tolerant article for details.

Field Search

This holds the Field name in the layer that is to be used when using the Search function. You may only have one search field name. Select the field that you require from the drop down list box of entries.

Please note that the layer element in the MapServer .map file needs the following entry for the Search function to work:

MapServer 6.4
VALIDATION
  qstring '.'
END


MapServer 6.0
METADATA 
qstring_validation_pattern "." 
END