Using the WMS Reflector

This is a great way to preview options in GeoServer without coding a long URL. The reflector will output PNG (the default), JPEG, PNG 8, and GIF. Also, in cases where you don't want to use GeoWebCache, this is quite useful.

The URL passes a number of parameters to specify what output you want. Most of these will not be changed. Reflector uses default values for missing parameters. The only parameter you need to provide is the layers parameter by default. Check out the GeoServer documentation for more information on these values. There's no need to rehash them here.

Note

For more information, take a look at http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/tutorials/wmsreflector.html.

1. Let's use the topp:states layer preview for this example. Enter the following URL into your browser or select the JPEG output option from the All Formats drop-down list on the Layer Preview page. The Layer Preview URL is quite long:

      http://localhost:8080/geoserver/topp/wms?  
        service...