MapFish is a flexible and complete framework for building rich web-mapping applications. It emphasizes high productivity, and high-quality development.
MapFish is based on the Pylons Python web framework. MapFish extends Pylons with geospatial-specific functionality. For example MapFish provides specific tools for creating web services that allow querying and editing geographic objects.
MapFish also provides a complete RIA-oriented JavaScript toolbox, a JavaScript testing environment, and tools for compressing JavaScript code. The JavaScript toolbox is composed of the Ext, OpenLayers , GeoExt JavaScript toolkits, and specific components for interacting with MapFish web services.
In the following sections we assume that the MapFish framework is installed in a virtual Python environment named venv and that this virtual environment is activated. See the installation page to know how to install MapFish and activate the virtual environment.
This documentation provides links to chapters of the The Definitive Guide To Pylons book. Reading this book is highly recommended to anyone considering doing serious development with MapFish.