[QGIS-Developer] Embedded styling in some datatypes

[Nyall Dawson]

On Thu, 23 Nov 2023 at 20:51, Bo Victor Thomsen via QGIS-Developer <
qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> Hi list -
>
> I'm wondering about how to use embedded styling in certain types of file
> formats (like MapInfo Tab). I know its possible to read the embedded
> styling from a Tab fil and then convert it to a styling object in QGIS.
>
> However, what about the other direction ? Take a specific QGIS style
> from the layer styling of a tab file, and and write the specific style
> into the feature, so it will be present if you later open the tab file
> in (gasp!) MapIno ?

There's an option in the right-click, Export - Save Features As dialog for
"Symbology Export". This only shows up for some formats (depending on GDAL
library support for that format), of which Mapinfo TAB is one. If you set
this to anything other than "No Symbology" then ********** IN SOME CASES
********** the QGIS symbology will be written as the embedded symbols for
the features.

The big disclaimer is that the GDAL api for embedding styles, AND the
underlying format support is very limited compared with QGIS symbology
options. Eg it'll work for embedding colored line symbols, but won't for
shapeburst gradient fill polygons with data defined overrides 🤣!

There's likely many ways we could improve this at both the QGIS and GDAL
levels to better handle the full range of symbology options possible in TAB
files, and adding more graceful fallbacks from QGIS symbology to the
limited symbology options possible in GDAL/TAB.

Nyall



>
> The use case would be organisations that have a mixed environment of
> QGIS and MapInfo installations. It would allow QGIS users to create and
> update object in a .tab file and save the file. Later this file - if
> opened in MapInfo (or QGIS) - would be shown with the correct embedded
> styling.
>
> --
> Med venlig hilsen / Best regards
>
> Bo Victor Thomsen
>
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