> 2. The Move Up / Move Down facility on the User Attributes tab of
> the Feature Type Properties window for a destination feature type
> seems not to work most of the time; I've had to resort to manually
> moving one attribute up/down by one position at a time by right-
> clicking on the main canvas. Is this a bug/feature, or is there
> a trick to using it?
I saw this behaviour too a couple weeks ago, but didn't have time to
track it down and set up a reproducible example for support. I'd say
that if two of us have seen this then it must be a bug :)
> 3. I've noticed that the AttributeRemover does not appear to
> support the removal of list attributes - such attributes are not
> included in the "Attributes to Remove" pick list. Why is this?
> The documentation for the @RemoveAttributes function suggests
> that list attributes should be supported.
Because of the way that Workbench has evolved gradually, there are some
quirks in transformer design. For instance, there are two transformers
for removing attributes (AttributeRemover and ListRemover) but only one
for keeping attributes (AttributeKeeper). Just one of the things you
need to be aware of I guess.
> 4. Looking at the documentation, there are plenty of functions
> (e.g. @Coordinate) with different 'modes' of invocation, depending
> upon the type/value of the supplied parameters. Each transformer
> supports one any only one mode of invocation [snip] does this mean
> that there will always be other transformers that use the other
> invocations, or do you have to get your hands dirty to use them?
Sometimes there are multiple transformers for the different modes of the
functions. Other times, the different modes are supported by options in
the transformer properties dialog. When I started using FME, Safe had
committed to exposing all of the fme functionality in Workbench. I
think they're pretty much there now.
> 5. ... which leads to the question: if you do decide to get your
> hands dirty in the mapping file, does this mean that you have to
> ditch workbench because it won't necessarily be able to visualise
> your script?
In over three years of pushing the limits of FME's transformative
capabilities (though not even coming close to its bandwidth capacity) I
have yet to run into a situation where I have had to hack into the
mapping file. There are participants on this list that will recommend
mapping files because of performance and flexibility, but my perspective
is that the not having to learn another language and being able to
maintain the workspaces in a visual environment outweigh these items for
all but the largest-volume transformations.
If you really need specific functionality, it is possible to create your
own transformers using snippets of mapping file syntax within a
transformer template (fmx) file, or using external Python scripts that
access the pyfme library directly.
Jason
Join us at the FME Worldwide User Conference Sept. 21-22, 2006 Vancouver BC
Canada. For more information, visit www.safe.com/2006uc.
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