[PROJ] PROJ 7.2.0RC2 and PROJ-data 1.3RC2

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi Kristian,

Thanks for the team effort on PROJ 7.2    I have tried very hard to test 
both GDAL 3.2.0 and PROJ 7.2.0rc2 on Windows this week, and provide you 
with good feedback, which I hope is well received :

- PROJ 7.2.0RC2 builds well on Windows (MS4W build environment)
- would you be open to enhancing the search path for the resource files, 
to first check the (popular and long-used) PROJ_LIB environment variable 
path?

Or maybe a nice enhancement is adding a new option to proj.ini such as :

   ; Writable folder to store network files, such as grid files through 
the CDN
   cdn_writable_local_folder = /ttt/proj/nad

This will help prevent any access of the obscure Windows profile 
'APPDATA' folder, that 99% of Windows users do not know where or how to 
access.  It would make managing the grid files on Windows, for both 
users and packagers, very easy (since we are all very familiar with 
decades of manipulating the PROJ_LIB environment variable path for 
resource files, where our software normally lives).

The projsync utility would also therefore use this new setting. (in my 
tests, --user-writable-directory would go searching into the depths of 
Windows profiles ha, and --system-directory searched a path from the 
build process, which users will never have yikes, of D:/build/proj-7.2.0/..)

Please let me know your thoughts on this.  I realize there are other 
platforms to please, but maybe other platforms would also appreciate a 
'cdn_writable_local_folder' setting, or the enhanced use of PROJ_LIB. 
(I've noticed a few other users recently mention PROJ_LIB search process 
in recent tickets, so I do have hope ha)

Well at least I asked.  I think it's very important to provide feedback 
(you'll notice that I'm always one of the few who actually tries to use 
the software before releases and gives feedback).

Thanks for listening,

-jeff


(thanks again to Alan for pointing to 
https://proj.org/resource_files.html#where-are-proj-resource-files-looked-for 
)




-- 
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
co-founder of FOSS4G
http://gatewaygeo.com/