Accounts and User Profile

In GeoNode many contents are public so unregistered users have read-only access to
public maps, datasets and documents. In order to create maps, add datasets or
documents, edit the data and share these resources with other users, you need to sign
in.

GeoNode is primarily a social platform, thus a primary component of any GeoNode

instance is the user account.

This section will guide you through account registration, updating your account
information and preferences, connections with social networks and email addresses.

 Creating a New Account

 Updating the Profile

Updating the Profile

Once having an account you can enrich your profile with useful information, you can
also edit or delete the existing ones. You can connect the account with your social
network, associate many e-mail addresses to it and manage many options such as
preferences about notifications.

You can update these information anytime from your Profile page which is accessible
from the user menu.

So, click on your profile picture in the top right of the screen. A drop-down list will show.
Click on  Profile  to enter the Profile settings page.
 Link to your profile
The Profile page looks like the one shown in the picture below.
Creating a New Account
To take full advantage of all the GeoNode features you need a user account. Follow
these step to create a new one.

1. From any page in the web interface, you will see a  Register  link. Click that link, and
the register form will appear
Note

The registrations in GeoNode must be open, in case you don’t see the register
link then it’s not possible to register unless the administrator of the site does that
for you.

Register Link

2. On the next page, fill out the form. Enter a username and password in the fields.
Also, enter your email address for verification.
 Registering for a new account

3. You will be automatically logged in and redirected to the Profile page. An email will
be sent confirming that you have signed up. If no errors occur during the registration,
the following alerts will appear on the screen:

Alerts
To log out click on the  Log out  link of the user menu.

Logout link

You have to confirm this action as described in the picture below.

 Confirm Log out
Next  Previous

User profile page

Interacting with Users and Groups

The GeoNode platform allows you to communicate by message with other GeoNode
users and groups of users.

You can also invite external users to join your GeoNode. In order to do that, click on  Invite
Users  in the Profile page (see Updating the Profile) or in the  About  menu in the Home page.

You can invite your contacts typing their email addresses in the input field as shown in the
picture below. Click on  Submit  to perform the action.
 Invite users to join GeoNode
A message will confirm that invitations have been correctly sent.

Viewing other users information

Once your account is created, you can view other accounts on the system.

To see information about other users on the system, click the  People  link of the  About  menu
in Home page.
 About menu - People link
You will see a list of users registered on the system.
Contacting other users
GeoNode allows you to communicate by message with other registered users and groups.

To send a message to some user and/or groups you can follow the link  Message User  from
your Profile page (see Updating the Profile) or from the Profile details page (see the previous
section Viewing other users information) of that user.
Send message to users and groups
Insert your content, type a subject and click on  Send message  to send the message to the users
and groups you have selected.

You will be redirected to the Conversation details page related to the subject.

Your message
The Inbox page
You can view your conversations in your Inbox page, reachable through the  Back to
inbox  button (see the picture above) or from the  Inbox  link of the user menu.
 Inbox link
The picture below shows how your Inbox page should look like.

Inbox page
In Inbox all the unread messages are listed. You haven’t received any message yet so
your Inbox is empty. If you switch to the All tab you can see all the conversations you
are involved in.

All your conversations

When some user send a reply to your message your Inbox shows it, see the picture
below for an example.
 A reply to your messag

Data Types
GeoNode welcome page shows a variety of information about the current GeoNode
instance.
You can explore the existing data using many search tools and filters (see Finding Data)
or through the links of the navigation bar at the top of the page.
There are three main types of resources that GeoNode can manage:

1. Documents
2. Datasets
3. Maps
 Datasets, Documents and Remote Services can be accessed from the  Data  menu of
the navigation bar. The  Maps  menu lets you filter only maps in the available resource.
This applies to other existing menu items like  GeoStories .
Note

GeoStories  and  Dashboards  In the screenshot below are GeoApp resouce types which
are added by the client.
 Data menu

Finding Data
This section will guide you to navigate GeoNode to find datasets, maps and documents and
other resource types by using different routes, filters and search functions.

On every page you can find some quick search tool.

The Search box in the navigation bar (see the picture below) let you type a text and find
all the data which have to deal with that text.

Search tool in GeoNode welcome page

When you trigger a search you are brought to the Search page which shows you the
search result through all data types.
 The Search page
This page contains a wealth of options for customizing a search for various information on
GeoNode. This search form allows for much more fine-tuned searches than the simple search
box is available at the top of every page.

It is possible to search and filter data by Text, Types, Categories, Keywords, Owners, Regions
or Extent.

Try to set some filter and see how the resulting data list changes accordingly. An
interesting type of filter is EXTENT: you can apply a spatial filter by moving or zooming
a map within a box as shown in the picture below.
 Uploading Documents
GeoNode allows to share reports, conceptual notes, posters, spreadsheets, etc. A wide
range of documents files can be hosted on the platform, including text files
(.doc, .docx, .txt, .odt), spreadsheets (.xls, .xlsx, .ods), presentations (.ppt, .pptx, .odp),
images (.gif, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tiff), PDF, zip files (.rar, .zip, .gz), SLD, XML or QML files.

Warning

Only authenticated users can upload data into GeoNode.

Documents uploading is accessible by clicking Create new which displays a list

including upload document link:

Document Upload link

The Document Upload page looks like the one shown in the picture below.
 Document Upload page

In order to upload a document:

1. Select a file from your disk or enter a URL address if the document is stored on the
internet.
2. Insert the title of the document.
3. Select one or more published resources the document can be linked to (optional).
4. Click the red  Upload  button
At the end of the uploading process you will be driven to the Detail page with a menu to
save, view more info, edit metadata, share, download and delete the document. See the
next section to know more about Metatadata.
Share Options
GeoNode encourages to publicly, share and make available for download information
uploaded on the platform. By default, anyone can see and download a document.
However, the document responsible can choose to limit access to the document to
some contributors and/or groups.

Through the Share Link shown in the menu it is possible to manage the document share
options. it opens a form where set up who can:

 View (allows to view the document).

 Download (allows to view and download the document).
 Edit (allows to change the document metadata and attributes).
 Manage it (allows to update, delete, change share options, publish/unpublish).
 See an example in the picture below.

Note

After making changes, always save them with the Save Link in the menu
 Changing the Document share options

om your disk, make sure they are valid raster or vector spatial data. You can also
change the default Share options settings (see Share Options for further information on
how to set share options).
Select the charset, then click on  Upload files  to start the process or click  Clear  to remove
all the loaded files form the page.
In this example the  ne_10m_airports_vufl8s3  ESRI Shapefile, with all its mandatory files
(.shp, .shx, .dbf and .prj), has been chosen. A progress bar shows the operation made
during the dataset upload and alerts you when the process is over. When the process
ends click the dsataset name in the table to check the dataset has been correctly
uploaded.
 Dataset uploading finished
Note

There are lot of free spatial dataset available in the Internet. In this example, an extract
of the Berlin city center roads map from the BBBike extracts OpenStreetMap dataset
has been used.

In the next paragraphs you will learn how to create a dataset from scratch, how to set
share options, how to explore the dataset properties and how to edit them.

Note

If you get the following error message:

Total upload size exceeds 100.0 MB. Please try again with smaller files.

This means that there is an upload size limit of 100 MB. An user with administrative
access can change the upload size limits at the admin panel for size limits.

Similarly, for the following error message:

Creating a Dataset from scratch
An interesting tool that GeoNode makes available to you is the Create dataset. It allows
you to create a new vector dataset from scratch. The Dataset Creation Form is
reachable through the  Create dataset  link shown in the picture below.
 Create dataset link

In order to create the new Dataset you have to fill out the required fields:

 Name
 Title
 Geometry type
 Geometry types

Usually the datasets features should have some Attributes that enrich the amount of
information associated with each of them. Through the  Add Attribute  button you can add
new attributes.
 New Dataset creation from scratch

At this time you can also change the default Share options settings, see Share
Options to learn how.

Once the form has been filled out, click on  Create . You will be redirected to the Dataset
Page (see Dataset Information). Now your Dataset is created but is still empty, no
features have been added yet. See the Dataset Editing section to learn how to add new
features.
Next  Previous

Using Remote Services

In GeoNode you can add new datasets not only by loading them from your disk but also
using Remote Services. In this section you will learn how to add a new service and how
to load resources in GeoNode through that.

Let’s try it!

Click on the  Remote Services  link of the  Data  menu in the navigation bar.
 Remote Services link

The page that opens will contain the list of the available services.
 Remote Services

To configure a new service:

 click on  Add Remote Service

 type the Service URL
 select the Service Type
Share Options
When creating or uploading a new Dataset you have to set who can view, download,
edit and manage that Dataset. By default only owners can edit and manage datasets,
anyone can view them.

In order to modify the Dataset Share options settings, On the detail page of the dataset
click the  Share  link in the menu.
Change Dataset Share options
Through the Share options Settings Panel you can add or remove options for users and
groups. The picture below shows an example.
 Dataset Share options settings for users and groups

You can set the following share options:

 View (allows to view the dataset).

 Download (allows to view and download the dataset).
 Edit (allows to change the dataset metadata,change attributes and properties of the
datasets features and change the dataset style).
 Manage (allows to update, delete, change share options, publish and unpublish the
dataset).

Dataset Information
In this section you will learn more about datasets. In the Finding Data section we explain how to
find datasets, now we want to go more in depth showing you how to explore detailed information
about that.

From the resource list page, filter with datasets, click on the dataset you are interested in. The
overview page will be shown on the right, Then click on View dataset, The dataset detail page
will open.

The Dataset page has a menu which helps us to view and update dataset attributes.

Dataset Menu
Dataset Info
When you click the Info link in the menu, a new page will be opened on right.

 The Info tab is active by default. This tab section shows some dataset metadata
such as its title, the abstract, date of publication etc. The metadata also indicates the
dataset owner, what are the topic categories the dataset belongs to and which
regions are affected.
 Dataset Infor tab
 The Attributes tab shows the data structure behind the dataset. All the attributes are
listed and for each of them some statistics (e.g. the range of values) are estimated (if
possible).

Downloading Datasets
At the top of the Dataset Menu there is an  Export  link . It provides access to the ability to
extract geospatial data from within GeoNode.

You will be able to select from a list of options of the supported export file formats.
Downloading Datasets
Dataset Editing
The  Edit  link in the menu of the Dataset Page opens a list of options like ones shown in
the picture below.

Dataset Editing Link

In that options list, you can see three options listed as:

1. Edit Metadata
2. Edit Styles
3. Edit Data
In this section you will learn how to edit a Dataset, and its data. See Datasets
Metadata to learn how to explore the dataset Metadata, how to upload and edit them.
The Styles will be covered in a dedicated section, see Dataset Styling.

Editing the Dataset Data

The  Edit data  link of the Dataset Editing options opens the Dataset within a Map.
 Editing the Dataset Data
The Attribute Table panel of the Dataset will automatically appear at the bottom of
the Map. In that panel all the features are listed. For each feature you can zoom to its
extent by clicking on the corresponding magnifying glass icon   at the beginning
of the row, you can also observe which values the feature assumes for each attribute.

Click the Edit Mode   button to start an editing session.

Now you can:

 Add new Features

Through the Add New Feature button   it is possible to set up a

new feature for your dataset. Fill the attributes fields and

click   to save your change. Your new feature doesn’t

 have a shape yet, click on   to draw its shape directly on

the Map then click on   to save it.

Note

When your new feature has a multi-vertex shape you have to double-click the last
vertex to finish the drawing.
 Create New Feature
 Delete Features

If you want to delete a feature you have to select it on the Attribute Table and click

on  .

 Change the Feature Shape

You can edit the shape of an existing geometry dragging its vertices with the mouse.
A blue circle lets you know what vertex you are moving.

Features can have multipart shapes. You can add parts to the shape when editing it.

 Change the Feature Attributes

When you are in Edit Mode you can also edit the attributes values changing them
directly in the corresponding text fields. You can achieve this by going into the edit
mode and double click in the values.

Once you have finished you can end the Editing Session by clicking on

the  .

By default the GeoNode map viewer is MapStore based, see the MapStore

Documentation for further information.
Datasets Metadata
In GeoNode special importance is given to Metadata and their standard formats.

Editing Metadata
Metadata contains all the information related to the dataset. They provide essential information
for its identification and its comprehension. Metadata also make the dataset more easily
retrievable through search by other users.

The Metadata of a dataset can be changed through a Edit Metadata form which involves four
steps, one for each type of metadata considered:

You can open the Metadata form of a Dataset by clicking the  Edit Metadata  link from
the  Edit  options on the Dataset Page.
 Basic Metadata

The first two steps are mandatory (no datasets will be published if the required
information are not provided) whereas the last two are optional.
Basic Dataset Metadata
 In the first step the system asks you to insert the following metadata:

o The Thumbnail of the dataset (click  Edit  to change it);

o The Title of the dataset, which should be clear and understandable;
o An Abstract; brief narrative summary of the content of the dataset
Note

The Abstract panel allows you to insert HTML code through a wysiwyg text editor

o The Creation/Publication/Revision Dates which define the time period that is
covered by the dataset;
o The Keywords, which should be chosen within the available list. The contributor
search for available keywords by clicking on the searching bar, or on the folder
logo representing, or by entering the first letters of the desired word;
o The Category which the dataset belongs to;

Dataset Styling
Maps are helpful because they allow you gain a deeper understanding of your data by
allowing you to visualize it in many different ways. So you can tell different stories
depending on how the data is presented. For any given data or dataset, you should
explore different styling options and choose the best style for that.

In GeoNode each dataset has one style refered to as a Default Style which is

determined by the nature of the data you’re mapping. When uploading a new dataset
(see Datasets Uploading) a new default style will be associated to it.

Editing the Dataset Style

In order to edit a dataset style, open the Dataset Page (see Dataset Information) and
click on  Edit . Then click the  Edit Style  link in the options (see the picture below).
 Edit Styles button

Managing Maps
Maps are sets of datasets displayed together on an interactive web map. Maps can be
composed in the map composer and saved as GeoNode resources. Maps can also be
associated with metadata, ratings, and comments.
In this section, you will learn how to create a new map and share it.

 Creating Maps
 Map Information
 Maps Metadata
 Share Options
 Exploring Maps

Creating Maps
In this section, we’ll create a Map using some uploaded datasets, combine them with
some other datasets from remote web services, and then share the resulting map for
public viewing.

In order to create new maps you can use:

 The  Create map  listed after clicking the  Create new  link on the menu above the
resources list page.

The Create Map link

 The  Create map  link in the Dataset Page (it creates a map using a specific dataset)
 The Create map link from dataset

The new Map will open in a Map Viewer like the one in the picture below.
 The Map Viewer

In the upper left corner the |toc_button| button opens the Table of Contents (TOC) of

the Map. It allows to manage all the datasets associated with the map and to add new
ones from the Catalog.
The TOC component makes possible to manage datasets overlap on the map by
shifting their relative positions in the list (drag and drop them up or down in the list).
It also allows to hide/show datasets ( |show_button| and |hide_button| ), to zoom to
datasets extents ( |zoom_to_dataset_extent_button| ) and to manage their properties ( |
dataset_settings_button| ).
Once the map datasets have been settled it is possible to save the Map by clicking on |
burger_menu_button| and choosing  Save as .

If you followed the steps above, you have just created your first Map. Now you should
see it in the Explore Maps page, see Map Information for further details.

We will take a closer look at the Map Viewer tools in the Exploring Maps section.

Map Information
As mentioned in the Finding Data section, in GeoNode you can see your maps and all the
published maps through the filtering feature on the resource page.

Click on the title of the Map you are interested in to open its overview, then click on View Map, it
should looks like the following.
 Map Detail page
The Map Detail Page shows the Map with very basic functionalities:

 the Base Map Switcher that allows you to change the base map;

 the Zoom in/out tool to enlarge and decrease the view;
 the Zoom to max extent tool for the zoom to fit the datasets extents;
 the Query Objects tool to retrieve information about the map objects by clicking on
the map;
 the Print tool to print the preview.
To see the information of the Map, click on the :guilabel: Info in the menu of the details
page, This section shows some metadata such as its Title, the License, the Publication
Date etc. The metadata also indicates the map owner and which regions are involved.
see example below.
 Map Information page
See the MapStore Documentation to learn more.

Map Sharing
 The Share link on the detail page provides the link for the map to share.

Map Sharing

Maps Metadata
Maps Metadata can be Edited by clicking the  Edit Metadata  link from the Map
Detail page.

The Map Metadata Detail link

The Map Metadata Edit form will open. | Metadata provide essential information for the
identification and the comprehension of the map. They also make the map more easily
retrievable through the search tools. | Those Metadata can be filled out through three-
steps in which you have to provide all mandatory information to complete the process.
Those three steps are described below.

 Basic Metadata
Basic Map Metadata
 In the first step the system asks you to insert the following metadata (required fields
are highlighted with red outlines):

o The Thumbnail of the map (click  Edit  to change it);

o The Title of the map, which should be clear and understandable;
o An Abstract; brief narrative summary of the content of the Map
Note

The Abstract panel allows you to insert HTML code through a wysiwyg text editor

o The Creation/Publication/Revision Dates which define the time period that is
covered by the map;
o The Keywords, which should be chosen within the available list;
o The Category which the map belongs to;
o The Group which the map is linked to.
Click  Next >>  to go to the next step.
 Location and Licenses
Location and Licenses Metadata for Maps
 The following list shows what kinds of metadata you are required to enter (see also
the picture below):

o The Language of the layer;

o The License of the dataset;
o The Regions covered by the layers extent. Proposed extents cover the following
scales: global, continental, regional, national;
o The Data Quality statement (general explanation of the data producer’s
knowledge about the lineage of a dataset);
o Potential Restrictions on layer sharing.
No further mandatory metadata are required in the next step so, once the required
fields have been filled out, a green  Done  button will be visible in the screen.
Click  Next >>  to go to the next step or  << Back  to go back to the previous step.
 Optional Metadata
 Optional Map Metadata

Complementary information are:

o The Edition of the map;

o The Purpose of the map and its objectives;
o Any Supplemental information that can provide a better understanding of the
map;
o The Maintenance frequency of the map;
o The Spatial representation type, the method used to represent geographic
information in the dataset;
o The users who are Responsible for the layer, its Owner, and the Author of its
metadata;
If you miss some mandatory metadata the Completeness bar shows you a red message
like the one in the picture below.

Completeness Progress Bar

Metadata Advanced Editing
The  Advanced Metadata  editing button in the Metadata Edit form allows to change the
map metadata.

The Advanced Edit button

Click on it to display the Metadata Advanced Editing Page. That page allows you to edit
all the map metadata described in the previous paragraph.

Share Options
In GeoNode the share options management system is indeed more complex.
Administrators can choose who can do what for each map. Users can manage only the
maps they own or the maps which they are authorize to manage.

By default only owners can edit and manage maps, and anyone can view them.

In order to modify the Map Share Options settings you can click the  Share  link in
the Map Detail Page.
Through the Share Options Settings Panel you can add or remove options for users and
groups. The picture below shows an example.
Map Share options settings for users and groups
 You can set the following options:

 View (allows to view the map).

 Download (allows to view and download the map).
 Edit (allows to change the map’s metadata);
 Manage allows to update, delete, change share options, publish and unpublish the
map.
Warning

When assigning options to a group, all the group members will have that option. Be
careful in case of editing them.

Exploring Maps
In this section, we are going to explore all tools provided on the Map View page. From
the list of available maps, you can select the map you are interested in and click View
map, THe map vie will look like this.
Publishing Data
In GeoNode, each resource can be published in order to share it with other people.

In order to publish a map, document or dataset or any other Geonode resource, Go to

the settings tab in the Metadata Edit form, The check for publishing and unpublishing is
available. See picture below.

Resource publishing
GeoStory
GeoStory is a MapStore tool integrated in GeoNode that provides the user a way to
create inspiring and immersive stories by combining text, interactive maps, and other
multimedia content like images and video or other third party contents. Through this tool
you can simply tell your stories on the web and then publish and share them with
different groups of GeoNode users or make them public to everyone around the world.

To build a new GeoStory go to  Create new  option on the resource page and choose
option Create geostory.

New GeoStory Apps option

Now you landed on the GeoStory edition page that is composed of the following
sections:
 New GeoStory Apps option

The GeoStory content is organized in Sections, that can be added with the   
button in the Container area. In particular, the user can add to the story the following
kind of sections:

GeoStory Sections Types

For more information on these specific section please follow the official MapStore
documentation:

 Title Section
 Banner Section
 Paragraph Section
 Immersive Section
 Media Section
 Web Page Section
Add GeoNode content to GeoStory
With GeoNode you can add content to your GeoStory using internal GeoNode
documents and maps as well external sources. This ability to add internal GeoNode
content makes the GeoStory creation a very usefull feature.

To add GeoNode content to your GeoStory use the   button on top of your GeoStory
section.
From here you can add  Images ,  Videos  and  Maps . To enable GeoNode internal
catalog, on  Services  dropdown choose  GeoNode  as shown in picture down. On the left
you get a list of media documents available with a complementary text filter feature on
top.