Well I guess there is no "optimal" use of QGIS. Everyone has other priorities and everyone is using QGIS in other ways. So unless you are not writing a book for your own usecase I guess there will never be THE book for you. Information about howto use and optimal workflows for different things will always be cluttered in different books or in the net.
The Documentation is there and (I hope) it covers all of the core functionality of QGIS. The way you assemble this functionality is completely in your hand. Speking specifically from "where to download shapefiles" - There is a lot of open data available .. too much to for one book. And for some information you will find literally NO open data (unfortunately). There is no "golden way" for that. (Beside that - downloading data is very country specific). Sorry to say that. But there is light.. If you have any specific question - just ask here on the mailing list and I am sure you will get some answers (for your book :) ) kind regards Werner On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 9:33 AM, labiancamaril...@libero.it <labiancamaril...@libero.it> wrote: > > Dear all, > it is a bit 'of time I use QGIS and I must say that the community has helped > me to solve many problems and to learn a lot about using QGIS. > Meanwhile I also bought several books for using QGIS but I must say that > they have many limitations. > I ask because the community does not publish a book about the optimal use of > QGIS, with all the tips and practical information (such as union and what > precautions to use or where to download shapefiles .....). > Thank you all as always. > Marilena > > _______________________________________________ > Qgis-user mailing list > Qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list Qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user