Hi Folks,
So, as you may have guessed, Josh and I stopped spamming the listserv
a couple weeks ago, not because we suddenly got bored with the idea of
constructing Layered PDF Maps from Maptitude, but because we decided
to spare everyone the back and forth of product development. As of
today, we've posted the code for the Layers2PDF BETA Release and its
accompanying documentation file to Directions Magazine. (see
http://www.directionsmag.com/files/index.php/view/750)
Layers2PDF automates the Maptitude stages of creating the component
PDF Layers and JavaScript code to use Acrobat to assemble a Layered
PDF. It requires the use of PDFCreator (freely available),
Ghostscript (also free), and Acrobat 7+ (not free). While setup is a
little bit complicated, once you've set up the programs once, Layered
PDF Map production becomes quite fast.
As you may have noticed, one of those three programs doesn't fit in
with the others, and we'd like to fix that, allowing the production of
Layered PDFs from Maptitude without the purchase of any additional
software. The programming library (called iText) freely exists for a
number of languages, including Java, C#, and VB.NET along with
reasonably extensive tutorials, but neither of us are particularly
skilled in any of the languages. As such, we're searching for a
programmer to work with us to build what should be a reasonably simple
iText assembler program.
Ideally we'd like to find someone who is willing to donate their
development time to the cause, but if you like this software, and
would like to show thanks or otherwise see that last development stage
occur, and are interested in donating $$ to pay a programmer, please
contact me over the listserv.
PLEASE NOTE:
We're making these available without charge (GPLv3 license), so there
are no warranties or support available. Sorry. That said, if you do
find a bug, we'd like to know about it. Please copy down the EXACT
error message (the numbers separated by the commas are crucial!) and
send it along.
And in closing, the requisite shout-out to Larry Manire and Armando
Scalise, who helped foster a GISDK developer community by releasing
lots of their code including-- but not limited to-- the DKAIDS
package. In that spirit, we have posted commented code instead of a
compiled version.
For those of you just learning GISDK, you may find this program useful
in demonstrating:
- Finding the current directory
- Creating a safe directory to save files to without danger over
overwriting conflicts (not a tempfile)
- Adjusting the date & time output to something numeric and sortable
- Reading and Looping through the open layers in a map from a layout
- Creating and writing to a text file
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