/mapbox-gl-js

JavaScript/WebGL vector maps library

Primary LanguageJavaScriptOtherNOASSERTION

Build Status

A WebGL JavaScript interactive maps library that can render Mapbox Vector Tiles.

Using mapbox-gl-js

Include the source via HTML tags:

<script src='https://api.tiles.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/v0.11.0/mapbox-gl.js'></script>
<link href='https://api.tiles.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/v0.11.0/mapbox-gl.css' rel='stylesheet' />

For more information, see the API documentation and examples.

Alternatively, you can npm install mapbox-gl and use it as a bundled dependency with browserify.

Developing mapbox-gl-js

The following tools are required on any platform to develop mapbox-gl-js. Mac users are advised to use Homebrew unless they want to build these packages manually. APT install steps are relevant to Ubuntu Linux users.

  • git
    • OSX: brew install git
    • APT: sudo apt-get install git
  • node.js
  • GNU Make
  • imagemagick
    • OSX: brew install imagemagick
    • APT: sudo apt-get install imagemagick

On Linux, libglew-dev is required in order to run rendering tests:

$ sudo apt-get install libglew-dev

To install dependencies and build the source files:

$ npm install

To serve the debug page:

$ npm start &
$ open "http://localhost:9966/debug/?access_token="`echo $MapboxAccessToken`

This assumes you have the MapboxAccessToken environment variable set to a Mapbox API token from https://www.mapbox.com/account/apps/. This command uses mattdesl/budo to watch source files, rebuild the browserify bundle, and trigger LiveReload updates.

Running Tests

There are two test suites associated with Mapbox GL JS

  • npm test runs quick unit tests
  • npm run test-suite runs slower rendering tests from the mapbox-gl-test-suite repository

Running Benchmarks

The FPS benchmarking page compares the performance of your local copy of GL JS against previously released versions. Benchmarking configuration is within bench/fps/site.js.

To serve the FPS benchmark page:

$ npm start &
$ open "http://localhost:9966/bench/fps/?access_token="`echo $MapboxAccessToken`

API Documentation

API documentation is written as JSDoc comments and processed with documentationjs. We aim to document all classes and methods, public and private. Mark private classes and methods with @private.

To generate the HTML documentation from JSDoc, run npm run docs. To view the result, run jekyll serve (requires Jekyll).

Releasing

To prepare a release:

  • Merge mb-pages into master:
    • git checkout master && git merge origin/mb-pages
  • Update CHANGELOG.md
  • Update the version number in package.json, README.md, bench/fps/site.js, _config.yml, and _config.mb-pages.yml
  • Publish the build to the CDN (see below)
  • Publish the build to npm (npm publish)
  • Merge master into mb-pages and publish documentation:
    • git checkout mb-pages && git merge master && git push origin mb-pages

The CI server publishes builds to the Mapbox CDN automatically, but it does not currently support building tags. Therefore, to release a new version, push a branch with a name of the form vX.Y.Z, with version matching package.json. Once the build is successful, delete the branch and replace it with a tag.

Style Reference

Recommended Reading

Learning WebGL

GL performance

Misc