Hi, I list some quick notes about digitizing with OpenJUMP and some other programs.
1) - Before Ede implemented the new keyboard shortcuts the only way to cancel digitizing was to reselect the same digitizing tool or some other tool from the toolbox or Select features or Fence tool from the main menu. - With the new keyboard shortcuts we have now, selecting another tool does not cancel drawing but the only way to cancel digitizing is to press Esc when the same tool that was used to start drawing is active. - Behaviour is clearly different. I do not say if it better or worse. 2) - It is essential to be able to pan and zoom and continue to draw a long linestring or big polygon after that. In OpenJUMP this is possible by using the keyboard shortcuts. Actually, it is the only way. User cannot use for example Pan or Zoom tools from the main menu because selecting another tool cancels drawing. - Digitizing with Pan/Zoom keyboard shortcuts is nice and efficient but user needs to know how to use the shortcuts. It is probably not evident for new users. - Panning and zooming during drawing is not possible without keyboard. - QGis does not have at all as nice shortcuts for digitizing. It does have configurable shortcuts but they are not as nice to use (my opinion). - QGis does not cancel drawing if another tool is selected. Actually the default way to digitize seems to be to draw as long it is possible, select Pan tool, pan, select drawing tool, continue drawing, select Pan tool etc. I wouldn' t like to work that way but it is easy for the beginners and user do not need to touch the keyboard while drawing. - uDig cancels drawing when another tool is selected. - QGis and uDig are not totally comparable with OpenJUMP because they allow only one geometry type per layer and only one layer at a time can be editable. 3) - I do not see a reason for keeping not ready digitized feature open if it is not compulsory like it is with the QGis way to do use panning. Except one use case which I will tell later. For me it is OK to cancel drawing without asking if user selects another tool. 4) - However, if OpenJUMP should be used for digitizing with GPS a possibility to keep feature open for digitizing would be very good thing. It may take 5 minutes to walk to the next vertex when you are out in the field and if you see something else that should be recorded on another layer you would like to interrupt, save point or vertex of another feature and continue gathering points to your first feature. However, for efficient work user should be able to keep however many features open and user interface should be made to support selecting which not ready feature to continue. It is not so simple but I know one old PDA software (SOLO Field) where this was implemented well. 5) - We should perhaps think a bit more about making it somehow possible to digitize without keyboard because It may be that Windows 8 computers with touchscreen and keyboard will come more common. There was discussion about a related thing last year, read "SuperZoom and other zoom/pan tools" from http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.jump.devel/month=20120201. Perhaps improved SuperZoom tool could be a good solution. Let's hope Matthias hears and buys a laptop with touchscreen and does some testing :) That's all for today. -Jukka Rahkonen- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 positioned as A LEADER in The Forrester Wave(TM): Endpoint Security, Q1 2013 and "remains a good choice" in the endpoint security space. For insight on selecting the right partner to tackle endpoint security challenges, access the full report. http://p.sf.net/sfu/symantec-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Jump-pilot-devel mailing list Jump-pilot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jump-pilot-devel
