Hi Kay, the idea of integrating a script language popped up a few years ago. I am a great fan of Python, writing whole applications as well as integrating it into c++ programs in my real life job. But I do not think it's a good idea to do in an application like MapRoom or QLGT. This is beyond the scope of these programs. I never intended to write a replacement for QGis and QGis will never be a replacement for my software. Emphasizing Python plugins on QGis is imho a good idea. QGis is an application used in science, study and research. For that you need a highly adaptive, easy to change system. But for users used to Compeland/Basecamp et al. this is more a threat than a benefit.
The nice thing about Qt is next to the close perfect documentation it's intuitive API. I struggled a lot with MFC, GTK and a lot of other GUI libs. I always had the feeling to be too dump for that. When I started with Qt everything was obvious. You make a step and you think "Now this and that API call would be perfect". And, hey, you look at the documentation just to realize it is just done as a simple mind like me would expect it. (In most cases ;) ) That is why I encourage everyone to give it a chance. Even with rusty C++ knowledge. To use Qt you just need a very limited knowledge of that language. And in my own code I stick to a very simple use of C++, too. In fact you need more knowledge about object oriented programming in general, than about C++. With your own map you will have fun. Forget about bitching around with *tdb files and basemaps. Simply use the *img for the device. I haven't looked at it,yet, but you might want to decrease the number of elements on the outer zoom levels. Garmin maps tend to have too much stuff in these levels because they switch to the internal basemap. But OSM Freizeitkarte, for instance, is very well balanced on all zoom levels. Oliver > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 10. Juli 2014 um 23:02 Uhr > Von: "Kay F. Jahnke" <[email protected]> > An: [email protected] > Betreff: Re: [Qlandkartegt-users] A new horizon: MapRoom > > Am 08.07.2014 21:14, schrieb Oliver Eichler: > > Hi, > > > > probably most of you have wondered if the development of QLandkarte GT > > has come to an end as the release cycles lengthened. Well for QLandkarte > > GT there will be no big development anymore. It is kind of pretty complete. > > > > And, more important, my new ideas do not fit into the internal structure > > of QLandkarte GT anymore. You can change the concepts of a software one > > ore two times, by simply adding a second way to do things. This will > > mess up the code and at a certain point new ideas will not fit anymore. > > This has happened to QLandkarte GT. > > > > That is why I started from scratch. And it's not just copying code (ok I > > copied a lot of code, too) it's a complete new way to do things. > > Starting with a new repository host. I never was happy with Sourceforge. > > It was good because it was for free and there where not many alternative > > services. That's much better today. I choose BitBucket as service and > > Mercurial as repository. A big relief. > > I agree with your reasoning. I always thought that periodic > reincarnation was much better than becoming a dinosaur ;) > > And I also publish my stuff with bitbucket, and I became quite friendly > with mercurial. I think you've made a good choice! > > > Right now MapRoom is not really usable for a normal user. The only thing > > it does is rendering maps. > > Rendering maps well is a fine art. If it can do that, that's already a lot. > > > But that is, compared to QLandkarte, a big > > step into another direction. With MapRoom you can display several maps > > of different projection and scale in one workspace. And speaking of > > workspace: you can have several ones. I took the experience from users > > failing to cope with QLandkarte's way of handling maps and simplified > > everything as much as possible. If you are interested have a look into > > the documentation: > > > > https://bitbucket.org/maproom/maproom/wiki/DocMain > > In a way this sounds like you are moving towards a GIS, like QGIS. And > since you are starting afresh, you may come up with something sleek and > easy-to-use, instead of a near-infinite collection of plugins of varying > quality... > > > The difference is not only in what you see on your desktop. I also > > started with a new concept to structure the code. There are several > > sub-folders in the source path now. The sub-folders contain functional > > units. Thus knowing the functional unit you want to work on you > > automatically see just a subset of files important to that unit. That is > > much better than the current huge, flat source tree of QLandkarte GT. > > I must admit that I never got into qlgt's code - partly because I've > never worked with Qt. Somehow I always started reading up about all > their clever concepts like the model-view-controller paradigm and was > impressed by their nice demos, but I never got any further. > > > I also decided to use my own icons. I am not much of an artist, thus > > icons look all bad now. But at least that appearance is unified. And as > > every icon is automatically generated from a SVG file it should be > > fairly easy for a real artist to get involved. > > In my experience relying solely on icons generated from SVG drawings can > be problematic when the target icon is quite small (say 8X8). For those > smaller icons, drawing the icon by hand works much better. Might be > worth a consideration. > > > With that we are arriving at the "get involved" section. I think this is > > a very good moment to actively join the project. Open positions are: > > > > * Icon artist > > > > * Documentation writer (documenting new features, fixing my bad English) > > I could help with english. I'm a native German speaker, but I think my > english is pretty good. I suppose you're german as well? > > > * Translators (still have to add localization) > > > > * Developers > > My C++ is a bit rusty (and old-school) - but I's say I've come up with a > few bits of good code every now and then... > > Recently I have programmed a lot in Python and grown really fond of it. > Any plans to add a python interface? I started out with assembler in the > eighties, then went on to C and then C++, and I felt that Python was the > next step forward. > > > Especially for developers I am adding "tasks" to the issue tracker > > Looks a bit empty as of yet ;) > > > It would be a huge help if someone takes care of these tasks. I took > > care that there is no need to understand the complete code. That makes > > it easy to start. And you do not have to fight with half baked concepts > > on the first run. You can start right from the beginning with new code. > > If you are interested give me a short notice and I will give you a > > detailed briefing. > > > > I hope I could attract you curiosity. Right now you have to compile the > > code on your own. Nevertheless I would be happy if you use it and give > > feedback. > > You have my curiosity. I have been very happy to have qlgt, since it > gave me a way to display my map > > http://www.piemontegps.altervista.org/ > > on my linux system together with all my tracks and images and other > stuff. It hasn't always been easy; qlgt's UI was a bit hard to figure > out at times, and if things run more smoothly with your new program I'll > be even happier. > > > > > Have fun! > > My first bit of fun was to clone and use your repo. I'm used to plain > old cmake, so I was at first puzzled by ccmake. I had to grab gdal-dev > and I had to compile proj4 myself since it would not install from the > usual sources (I'm using Kubuntu 14.04 64bit on a Core-i5), but then the > code compiled and installed just like that, not even a single warning :) > > It ran as well, but I haven't done anything with it yet - quite busy at > the moment. > > Kay > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Open source business process management suite built on Java and Eclipse Turn processes into business applications with Bonita BPM Community Edition Quickly connect people, data, and systems into organized workflows Winner of BOSSIE, CODIE, OW2 and Gartner awards http://p.sf.net/sfu/Bonitasoft _______________________________________________ Qlandkartegt-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/qlandkartegt-users
