Latest Status - Jan 22, 2019

Tilemill has now been updated from the great work of TileOven, which was merged back into this project. The current goal is to update TileMill's dependencies to current versions and bring back GUI apps for each platform using Electron.

Changes from TileOven were pulled on Jan 20, 2019.

General Info

TileMill is a modern map design studio powered by Node.js and Mapnik.

TileMill is tested on Linux with Node 8.11.3 LTS, and partially tested on MacOS 10.14 with Node 8.15.0 lts/carbon
TileMill currently only works in server mode, there is no standalone GUI. Your browser is used for the interface.
There are no native packages provided. Installation requires cloning this repo. See details below under Installation.
Tilemill should theoretically work on the Windows platform, but it isn't tested.

Dependencies

Mapnik v2.3.0 (initial tests have worked on Mapnik 3.6.2, you'll need to update package.json)
Node.js v6.x, v4.x, v0.10.x or v0.8.x (initial tests have worked on Node 8.15 lts/carbon, but you'll need to update other packages as well)
Protobuf: libprotobuf-lite and protoc

Installation

Note: on Ubuntu make sure that you have the nodejs-legacy package installed!

To install from source just do:

git clone https://github.com/tilemill-project/tilemill.git
cd tilemill
nvm install v6.14.3
nvm use v6.14.3
npm install

Then to start TileMill do:

npm start # and then view http://localhost:20009 in your web browser

For more extended details follow:

If you'd like to pull in OpenStreetMap data for map generation in TileMill, a good starting point is to follow the OSM Bright Quickstart guides:

Changes pulled from Tileoven, since original fork from Tilemill

Features

Forked millstone, tilelive, node-srs dependencies, Node 8 now supported
Support for Node 8, thanks to patches and updated dependencies of @paulovieira
Added layer selection to map panel for fast comparisons with OSM and to save render time for low zoom levels
Added search field to layer panel
Added search field to styles panel
Added cloning of layers to layer panel
Layer actions only shown on hover, ideal for long layer names and reduces visual noise
Increased size of layer panel
Updated carto and node-mapnik dependencies, new CartoCSS commands available
Remember last selected folder in new layer dialog
Better compatibility with kosmtik, TileMill mml project files should work out of the box with kosmtik (https://github.com/kosmtik)

Bugfixes

Removed topcube and other obsolete dependencies
Removed windowed mode, only server mode is supported
Fixed Tab indentation in editor window
Fixed "Close" button bugs in Google Chrome (https://github.com/mapbox/tilemill/issues/2534)
Fixed mbtiles preview map
Removed Mapbox integration
Fixed CartoCSS variable auto completion
Fixed creation of job file in export if it doesn't exist
Fixed multiple output of CartoCSS errors to update to latest version

Build Status

TBD

Key modules

mapnik -
node-mapnik -
carto -
tilelive - TBD
tilelive-mapnik -
millstone - TBD
node-mbtiles -
node-sqlite3 -

Running tests

Install mocha and run the tests

npm install mocha
npm test

Note: the tests require a running postgres server and a postgis enabled database called template_postgis.

If you do not have a template_postgis create one like:

createdb -E UTF8 template_postgis
psql -c "CREATE EXTENSION postgis" template_postgis

If you experience failing tests here are two tips:

Debug the project data by running TileMill with

./index.js --files=./test/fixtures/files/
Try clearing the cache of test data:

rm -rf ./test/fixtures/files/

For more info see: http://postgis.net/docs/manual-1.5/ch02.html

Documentation

TileMill documentation is kept in the mb-pages branch, which is independently managed and not merged with master.

TileMill's in-app reference available as the "Manual" (see below for syncing details) is a very small subset of docs for offline usage and is manually sync'ed from the mb-pages branch.

To view all the TileMill documentation locally, first checkout the mb-pages branch:

git checkout mb-pages

Then install Jekyll:

sudo gem install jekyll

And run Jekyll:

jekyll

Once Jekyll has started you should be able to view the docs in a browser at:

http://localhost:4000/tilemill/

Syncing manual

To sync the manual with mb-pages updates do:

export TILEMILL_SOURCES=`pwd`
cd ../
git clone --depth=1 -b mb-pages https://github.com/mapbox/tilemill tilemill-mb-pages
cd ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}
export TILEMILL_GHPAGES=../tilemill-mb-pages
rm -rf ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/assets/manual
mkdir -p ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/assets/manual
cp -r ${TILEMILL_GHPAGES}/assets/manual/* ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/assets/manual/
git add ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/assets/manual/*
rm -rf ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/_posts/docs/reference
mkdir -p ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/_posts/docs/reference
cp -r ${TILEMILL_GHPAGES}/_posts/docs/reference/* ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/_posts/docs/reference/
git add ${TILEMILL_SOURCES}/_posts/docs/reference/*

ajashton/tilemill