I'm experiencing some difficulty using WFS services with MapInfo Pro and wondered if anyone had got it working in any practicable way? These issues are with v16 and v17 versions of Pro and I don't have access to later versions at the moment.
The WFS backs on to a database containing a large (many millions) of features so it's impossible for Pro to grab and cache the whole layer. I'm using the Row Filter option with "geom, BBOX, CURRENT_MAPPER" to restrict the data fetch to features in the current view. The data comes in and everything looks good so far. The service has a generous "maximum features per transaction" so we don't have any problem there.
When I pan the map to a new area, the WFS does not automatically refresh. This is fine as its not always desirable to auto-refresh (although it would be nice for Pro to have an option in a future release). Under the Table ribbon, there is a Web Services dropdown which contains "WFS Table Refresh". A dialog box appears, I select my single WFS and it appears to be fetching new data but my mapper window does not fill with new content. In fact, I believe it's just refreshed the same data from the original/previous view.
Under Web Services, there is also a "WFS Table Properties" option, which brings up a dialog similar to Open WFS Table. Clicking on the Row Filter button, I see it's changed to "geom, BBOX, Previous Selection", which seems to support my theory that it's refreshing the previous view. Putting this back to "CURRENT_MAPPER" results in the correct refresh. This is obviously not a very good process for someone wanting to get regular WFS content updates as they move around a map.
In the backstage area (Pro menu option), there is an option for Web Services and a tab specific to WFS. The first option is "Update Mapper Filters with Current Mapper", which (to me at least) means the "geom, BBOX, Current Mapper" row filter should be retained and the CURRENT_MAPPER bounding box values updated. This option, however, doesn't seem to change any behaviour that I've seen.
Has anyone got WFS (against a large service database) refreshing in a satisfactory manner? It doesn't seem to be working in a reasonable way so have I missed something?
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Regards,
Warren Vick
Europa Technologies Ltd.
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