Quick start

This is quick start guide to help you how to publish your first dataset on Lizmap with a few knowledge.

Installing the Lizmap plugin on QGIS Desktop

To publish a QGIS project in Lizmap Web Client, you need a Lizmap configuration file, with the extension .qgs.cfg. This file is automatically generated by the Lizmap plugin in QGIS Desktop.

1. Menu ‣ Plugins ‣ Manage and Install Plugins

2. Search Lizmap

3. Click on the plugin

4. Click on the button Install

5. It’s available in the menu and toolbar Web

6. Click the Lizmap button

7. Follow the wizard for adding your first server

Preparing your file organization

Lizmap Web Client must have the same files and directories architecture on the server than on your local computer.

Tip

It’s important to keep in mind that QGIS server will open your project with the same file paths as on your QGIS desktop. All your data must be within a folder which can be transferred.

Tip

custom_repository is a folder representing a common theme. The folder will contain one or many QGIS projects, belonging to this theme. The name of the theme displayed on the web interface will be configured later. You should use a machine name.

You are free to rename this folder with a different name, representing your own theme.

In this folder, we will store all projects related to Urbanisme and land-use during this tutorial.

We are going to create a folder structure on to make it easy to transfer on the server later:

1. On your computer, create a local lizmap folder

2. Create in the lizmap folder a media folder

3. Create in the lizmap folder a custom_repository folder

4. Create in the lizmap/custom_repository folder a media folder

5. Create in the lizmap/custom_repository folder a data folder

6. Copy in the folder lizmap/custom_repository/data the geographic data to publish (FlatGeoBuf, GeoJSON, SHP, others files)

You should have this tree structure on your computer:

lizmap/
+- media/
+- custom_repository/
   +- media/
   +- data/
      +- geo-data.fgb
      +- your-geo-data.shp
      +- your-geo-data.shx
      +- your-geo-data.dbf
      +- your-geo-data.prj

Tip

You can change names of these directories except for media, which is a special keyword for Lizmap. Read later the chapter about Media.

Preparing your QGIS project

1. In QGIS desktop, load data from the folder lizmap/custom_repository/data

2. Save the QGIS project in lizmap/custom_repository with the .qgs extension. For instance my-first-lizmap.qgs.

3. Prepare the data rendering:

   • layer order

   • groups in the legend

   • symbology

   • labels, etc

4. In Project Properties ‣ QGIS Server ‣ Service Capabilities, fill some metadata :

   • Title, the main title which will be displayed in the landing page. Use a human title with space and accents.

   • Abstract, a fully written paragraph for the description. HTML is supported.

   • Keywords, some keywords separated by a comma. This will be used by the search bar.

You should have this tree structure on your computer:

lizmap/
+- media/
+- custom_repository/
   +- media/
   +- data/
      +- your-geo-data.shp
      +- your-geo-data.shx
      +- your-geo-data.dbf
      +- your-geo-data.prj
      +- other-geo-data.fgb
   +- my-first-lizmap.qgs
   +- my-first-lizmap.qgs.cfg

Generate the Lizmap configuration file

1. Click the Lizmap button

2. Click on the Layers tab

3. For each layer:

   1. Set a custom human title for your layer, which will be display in the legend

   2. Be default, layers are published but not visible in Lizmap Web Client when we open the project online. Click on Toggled to make the layer visible by default.

4. Click on Ok

Next to my-first-lizmap.qgs, you must find now a new file my-first-lizmap.qgs.cfg.

Upload your files to your Lizmap server

When your map is ready, you need to upload all files and folder to the server.

Tip

With the help of your system administrator or the Lizmap provider, you must check:

• how to transfer files on the server

• the folder on the server used for hosting Lizmap repositories

Example of an instance hosted on Lizmap Cloud , you should have this tree structure on the server, into the qgis folder:

cog/
qgis/
+- media/
+- custom_repository/
   +- media/
   +- data/
      +- your-geo-data.shp
      +- your-geo-data.shx
      +- your-geo-data.dbf
      +- your-geo-data.prj
      +- other-geo-data.fgb
   +- my-first-lizmap.qgs
   +- my-first-lizmap.qgs.cfg
web/

Enable your folder to be a published repository

Be default, the newly created folder custom_repository located on the server in not publicly published on the Lizmap landing page.

You must enable the remote folder, to be recognised as a Lizmap repository.

1. Go the administration interface of Lizmap in your web browser

2. Click on Map Management and then click on Create repository

3. Fill in the form:

   1. Fill the Local folder path with the custom_repository path.

      • Either it can be a dropdown menu if a root repository is configured by the administrator (recommended solution)

      • Or it can be a text input. You need to fill a absolute path to the folder

   2. Update the Label with the name to be displayed on the landing page, for instance Urbanisme and land-use, accents and space recommended.

   3. Update the ID, it’s an internal ID for Lizmap. It’s mainly visible in the URL of the project. This identifier can not be edited later.

   4. Click on all the permission boxes you want to change. For beginners, we suggest you to let the ones checked by default.

   5. Click on Save

Your folder custom_repository should be now recognised as a valid Lizmap repository.

Visit your landing page and you should see your project and you can now display the QGIS project online.

Well done.

Tip

The folder custom_repository can contain as many as you want QGIS project files with their corresponding .qgs.cfg file. All projects will be listed horizontally on the landing page.

Tip

If you create another folder next to custom_repository, like forestry with a published name Forestry, your folder will be listed vertically.

Tip

In your administration page, visit the QGIS projects page to have an overview of all your Lizmap repositories and metadata about QGIS projects.

Going further

This the end of the quick start guide, we encourage you reading deeper the documentation about other topics, such as:

• Project thumbnail

• Editing — Edit a layer from the web interface

• Printing

Example of Lizmap repositories

To understand how projects are listed vertically and horizontally, let’s have a look to the demo website.

If you look carefully, we can see there are some Lizmap repositories such as :

• Features containing for instance :

  • Cats : cats.qgs and cats.qgs.cfg

  • Landuse : landuse.qgs and landuse.qgs.cfg

  • Action and SQL : action.qgs and action.qgs.cfg

  • …

• Modules :

  • PgMetadata

  • PgRouting

It’s important to note that a Lizmap repository can contain one or many QGS files.

• QGIS projects are displayed horizontally within a same folder.

• Folders are displayed vertically on the landing page.