User guide

Managing GeoNode connections

The QGIS GeoNode plugin adds a new Geonode Plugin section to the QGIS Data Source Manager dialogue. This section can be used to add new GeoNode connections, search for existing datasets and load them as QGIS layers.

Add a new GeoNode connection

In order to add a new GeoNode connection:

1. Open the QGIS Data Source Manager (Ctrl + L) and go to the GeoNode Plugin section

2. Add a new GeoNode instance connection, by clicking the New button

3. A new dialogue is shown. This dialogue requests the following details of the GeoNode connection being created:

   Parameter	Description
   Name	The name used by QGIS to refer to this connection
   GeoNode URL	The base URL of the GeoNode being connected to (e.g. https://stable.demo.geonde.org)
   Authentication	Whether to use authentication to connect to GeoNode or not. See the Configure authentication section below for more details on how to configure authenticated access to GeoNode
   Page size	How many search results per page shall be shown by QGIS. This defaults to 10
   WFS version	Which version of the Web Feature Service (WFS) to use for requesting vector layers from the remote GeoNode. Defaults to v1.1.0.

   Note

   There is currently a bug in QGIS which prevents using WFS version 2.0.0 for editing a vector layer's geometry,

   https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/47254

   Therefore, for the time being, we reccomend using WFS version 1.1.0, which works OK.

4. Optionally you may now click the Test Connection button. QGIS will then try to connect to GeoNode in order to discover what version of GeoNode is being used by the remote server.

   Upon a successful connection, the detected GeoNode version will be shown below. Depending on the detected GeoNode version, the plugin may not be able to offer all of its functionalities. The supported capabilities are listed in the API client capabilities section. Check the Supported capabilities section below for more information about capabilities

5. Finally, accept the new connection dialogue by clicking the Ok button. Your new connection is now ready to be used.

Edit an existing connection

In order to edit the details of an existing connection, just re-open the QGIS Data Source Manager (Ctrl + L), go to the GeoNode plugin section, select the relevant connection from the Connections dropdown and click the Edit button. A dialogue similar to the one discussed above in the Add a new GeoNode connection section shall be shown with the connection details ready for editing

Remove a GeoNode connection

In order to remove an existing connection, re-open the QGIS Data Source Manager (Ctrl + L), go to the GeoNode plugin section, select the relevant connection from the Connections drop down and click the Remove button. A confirmation dialogue will ask whether to really remove the connection. Upon acceptance of this dialogue, the connection will be removed.

Configure authentication

The plugin is able to authenticate to remote GeoNode instances by using HTTP Basic Auth (OAuth2 is also an option, if you really want it).

In order to configure Basic Auth:

1. Open the main QGIS authentication settings dialogue by going to Settings -> Options... in the main QGIS menu bar and then access the Authentication section

2. Press the Add new authentication configuration button. A new dialogue is shown. In this dialogue, fill in the following details:

   Parameter	Description
   Name	The name used by QGIS to refer to the authentication configuration
   Authentication type	Select the Basic authentication option from the dropdown
   Username	Your GeoNode username
   Password	Your GeoNode user password

   The remaining fields can be left at their default values

3. Now when configuring a new GeoNode connection, select this newly created authentication configuration in order to have the GeoNode connection use it

Extra - Using OAuth2 for authorization

This option is not recommended in most cases, since it involves a more advanced set up and also requires requesting additional information from the remote GeoNode administrators. It may be viable when connecting to GeoNode using shared computing resources, where you do not want to store your GeoNode user credentials locally.

In order to be able to gain authenticated access to a GeoNode connection via OAuth2 you will need to request that one of the GeoNode administrators create an OAuth2 application and provide you with the following relevant details:

• Client ID
• Client Secret

Most OAuth2 grant types implemented in QGIS are supported. We recommend using the Authorization Code grant type. In order to configure such an authentication:

1. Open the main QGIS authentication settings dialogue by going to Settings -> Options... in the main QGIS menu bar and then access the Authentication section

2. Press the Add new authentication configuration button. A new dialogue is shown. In this dialogue, fill in the following details:

   Parameter	Description
   Name	The name used by QGIS to refer to the authentication configuration
   Authentication type	Select the OAuth2 authentication option from the dropdown
   Request URL	This is derived from the GeoNode base URL and takes the form <geonode-base-url>/o/authorize/, e.g. https://stable.demo.geonode.org/o/authorize/
   Token URL	This is derived from the GeoNode base URL and takes the form <geonode-base-url>/o/token/, e.g. https://stable.demo.geonode.org/o/token/
   Client ID	The client ID you got from your GeoNode administrator
   Client Secret	The client secret you got from your GeoNode administrator

   The remaining fields can be left at their default values

3. Now when configuring a new GeoNode connection, select this newly created authentication configuration in order to have the GeoNode connection use it

Searching GeoNode datasets

After having configured a GeoNode connection, you may now use the plugin to search and load GeoNode datasets onto QGIS

1. Select the relevant connection from the dropdown list

2. Set any desired filters. Depending on the detected GeoNode version, the following search filters may be available:

   Search filter	Description
   Title	The resource title is used to filter search results and returning records that contains the supplied title
   Abstract	Same as the title filter, records that contains the provided abstract value will be returned
   Keywords	Search will filter all resources that have keywords that exactly matches the selected keyword
   Topic Category	Filters the resources that their categories exactly matches the selected category
   Resources types	Filters resources based on the selected resource type
   Temporal extent	This filter used to select resources based on the stored temporal extent. Two fields start and end are used to represent the beginning and end of the extent respectively, during filtering both fields values are excluded. When both fields are supplied, resources containing temporal extent that is greater than start and less than end will be returned. If only start is provided, resources with the temporal extent beginning that is greater than start will be returned, if only end is provided resource with temporal extent end that is less than end will be returned
   Publication date	This filter has similar conditions as the Temporal extent filter, the difference here is the filter is applied to the resource's publication date and not the resources temporal extent
   Spatial Extent	The spatial extent filter is used to filter resources based on their geospatial extent, the extent can be filled by using a QGIS layer extent, map canvas extent or values can be manually added

3. Choose which field to use for sorting the search results and whether to reverse the sort order.

   Note

   Sorting is performed by the remote GeoNode server. Therefore it must be parametrized before actually searching the remote. If you wish to change the sort order after having already performed a search then you need to press the Search GeoNode button again.

4. Press the Search Geonode button. The plugin proceeds to contact the remote GeoNode instance and search for available datasets.

After searching is complete a list of search results is shown below the search buttons. If a large number of results has been found you may use the previous and next buttons to paginate through the whole result set and eventually inspect all of them.

Search results

Each dataset shown on the search results list features the following elements:

Parameter	Description
Title	The title of the dataset
Dataset type	Wheter the dataset is a vector or a raster
Abstract	Brief description about the dataset
Thumbnail	Small image representation of the dataset
Load layer via WMS	Button to allow loading the dataset onto QGIS as a WMS layer
Load via WFS/WCS	Depending on the type of dataset, a button to load the dataset onto QGIS either as a WFS (for vectors) or WCS (for raster) layer
Open dataset in web browser	Button to open your web browser and visit the original dataset URL on the remote GeoNode instance

Working with GeoNode layers

After having discovered some interesting datasets, press one of their respective load buttons to load them as QGIS layers.

Layer metadata

For layers that came from GeoNode, their metadata is also populated from GeoNode. Metadata can be inspected by opening the layer properties dialogue (double-click the layer name on the QGIS layers list) and navigating to the Metadata section.

If the relevant plugin capabilities are available for the detected GeoNode version, it may also be possible to modify some metadata fields and save them back to GeoNode. This can be achieved by:

1. Modifying the relevant metadata property by using the QGIS layer metadata section of the layer properties dialogue

   Note

   The current version of the QGIS GeoNode plugin is only able to upload the following metadata fields back to GeoNode:

   • Title
   • Abstract

2. Navigating to the GeoNode section of the layer properties dialogue and locating the Metadata group

3. Pressing the Save current metadata to GeoNode button. The plugin then proceeds to upload the metadata back to GeoNode.

   Note

   Uploading metadata back to GeoNode is likely an operation that requires your GeoNode connection to use authentication.

Layer symbology

Depending on the layer type and on the capabilities supported by the plugin for the detected GeoNode version, the plugin may be able to load a layer's symbology from the remote GeoNode.

Note

GeoNode datasets export their symbology using the OGC Styled Layer Descriptor (.sld) format.

QGIS is not currently able to load SLD for raster layers. Therefore, the QGIS GeoNode plugin is only able to style datasets which are loaded using the WFS vector provider

The plugin may also be able to modify the layer symbology and upload it back to the remote GeoNode. This can be achieved by:

1. Modifying the layer symbology using QGIS symbology tools

2. Navigating to the GeoNode section of the layer properties dialogue and locating the Layer style group

3. Pressing the Save current style to GeoNode button. The plugin then proceeds to upload the symbology back to GeoNode.

   Warning

   Uploading symbology back to GeoNode requires an intermediary step whereby the QGIS native symbology is converted to OGC SLD, which is the format GeoNode understands.

   Unfortunately it is currently not possible to perfectly match all QGIS native symbology features to SLD. Therefore, the resulting exported symbology may differ from the original

   Note

   Uploading symbology back to GeoNode is likely an operation that requires your GeoNode connection to use authentication.

Uploading existing QGIS layers to GeoNode

The plugin allows uploading existing QGIS layers to GeoNode. This can be achieved by:

1. Load some layer onto QGIS. Any vector or raster layer should work

2. Access the layer properties dialog and navigate to the GeoNode section. Then locate the Upload layer to GeoNode group

3. Select an appropriate connection from the GeoNode connection drop down.

4. Choose the default visibility to be applied to the uploaded layer by toggling the Make layer publicly available checkbox as appropriate

5. Press the Upload layer to GeoNode button. The plugin then proceeds to upload the layer to GeoNode.

   Note

   Uploading a QGIS layer to GeoNode is likely an operation that requires your GeoNode connection to use authentication.

   Note

   The current version of this plugin uses a timeout of ten minutes for the layer upload operation, which may be a limitation for large files. A future version of the plugin may allow the user to modify this value.

Plugin capabilities

Depending on the detected version of GeoNode, the plugin may allow performing different actions. These are classified as a set of capabilities.

Capability	Available for GeoNode version	Description
FILTER_BY_TITLE	All	Filter datasets by their title property according to the presence of a user-provided sub-string
FILTER_BY_ABSTRACT	All	Filter datasets by abstract property according to the presence of a user-provided sub-string
FILTER_BY_RESOURCE_TYPES	All	Filter datasets by their type (vector or raster)
FILTER_BY_KEYWORD	>= 3.3.0	Filter datasets by an arbitrary keyword
FILTER_BY_TOPIC_CATEGORY	>= 3.3.0	Filter datasets by their ISO topic category
FILTER_BY_TEMPORAL_EXTENT	>= 3.3.0	Filter datasets by their temporal extent
FILTER_BY_PUBLICATION_DATE	>= 3.3.0	Filter datasets by their publication date
FILTER_BY_SPATIAL_EXTENT	-	Filter datasets by a spatial bounding box
LOAD_LAYER_METADATA	>= 3.3.0	Load dataset metadata onto QGIS when loading as a layer
MODIFY_LAYER_METADATA	>= 3.3.0	Upload metadata fields of a loaded QGIS layer back to GeoNode
LOAD_VECTOR_LAYER_STYLE	>= 3.3.0	Load SLD style onto QGIS when loading GeoNode dataset as a QGIS vector layer
LOAD_RASTER_LAYER_STYLE	-	Load SLD style onto QGIS when loading GeoNode dataset as QGIS raster layer
MODIFY_VECTOR_LAYER_STYLE	>= 3.3.0	Upload vector layer symbology back to GeoNode NOTE: This functionality is currently not supported when using HTTP Basic Authentication. Check https://github.com/kartoza/qgis_geonode/issues/222 for more information
MODIFY_RASTER_LAYER_STYLE	>= 3.3.0	Upload raster layer symbology back to GeoNode NOTE: This functionality is currently not supported when using HTTP Basic Authentication. Check https://github.com/kartoza/qgis_geonode/issues/222 for more information
LOAD_VECTOR_DATASET_VIA_WMS	All	Load GeoNode vector dataset as a QGIS layer via OGC WMS
LOAD_VECTOR_DATASET_VIA_WFS	All	Load GeoNode vector dataset as a QGIS layer using via OGC WFS
LOAD_RASTER_DATASET_VIA_WMS	All	Load GeoNode raster dataset as a QGIS layer via OGC WMS
LOAD_RASTER_DATASET_VIA_WCS	All	Load GeoNode raster dataset as a QGIS layer via OGC WCS
UPLOAD_VECTOR_LAYER	>= 3.4.0	Upload QGIS vector layer to GeoNode
UPLOAD_RASTER_LAYER	>= 3.4.0	upload QGIS raster layer to GeoNode