On 17 Feb 2005 at 19:33, gibsoncalendar wrote:
> Also, would you say that Maptitude is easy to learn? Is it easy to > import data from Microsoft Excel and Access? Are you satisfied with > the image quality? Lastly, how would you say Maptitude compares with > other GIS software like MapInfo? I've heard that MapInfo provides We used to use Mapinfo. The last version we used was 4.01. They're on 7.5 now. There were some very handy things I could do with Mapinfo that I still cannot do with Maptitude. Like if I wanted to make two different layouts match, I could enter the location of an object in terms of inches (i.e.: make a 2" square located 1" from the top and three from the left.) In Mapinfo you can easily combine two layers into one. I like Mapinfo's SQL based data interface better, but that could be an issue of preference. In Mapinfo if you want to have a layer with points, and if you want to use different style markers for each point (like an "F" in a circle for a fire department, an "H" in a circle for a hospital, etc.) you can easily do that by actually making the points into those symbols. In Maptitude you can kinda-sorta do that through the ccstyle field, but it's a lot more tedious. If it wasn't buggy the flexability would probably outweigh the hassle. Mapinfo is much more graceful in the way it handles missing and moved files. In Mapinfo you can change the menus and keyboard shortcuts by just editing a text file. In Maptitude there are no keyboard shortcuts. So what do I like about Maptitude? At the time we switched, the output from Maptitude was way better than anything you could do with Mapinfo. The printouts just looked so much better. Further, the nationwide data and geographic boundaries made life a lot easier for the kinds of things we wanted to do. I don't know how much Mapinfo's national street data set it -- they don't post the price on their website. With Maptitude it's in the box. If I was going to make maps to show a neighborhood with information for individual sides of each block (so each city block would have 4 different values), which might be what you were describing, I might do that in Adobe Illustrator. Ease of use? I think all mapping software is hard to use. Maptitude might be a little easier in concept but the user interface makes up for that by making each operation require mouse clicks and movements. Not to mention the lack of an undo function. I can't tell you how many layouts I've botched by accidentally dragging (or deleting) an item. If you accidentally rotate a text item there is absolutely no way to recover, other than deleting it and re-typing it. I guess a lot of people compare Maptitude to dinosaur products sold by crummy companies run by bozos and rightly conclude, that in comparison, Maptitude is great, especially for the price. But I don't really work in the GIS industry. I compare Maptitude to other software that I use more, especially Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, which I use every single day. Photoshop is great software because Adobe spent a lot of time figuring how to get the program out of the user's way. Maptitude is *always* in the way. Bob ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/RzSHvD/UOnJAA/79vVAA/C5grlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Maptitude/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
