[Qgis-user] Bugs, release of 1.7 and release of 1.7 as beta

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On 6/6/2011 8:18 AM, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
> Il 06/06/2011 15:15, . ha scritto:
>
>> What major features remain to be finished?
> Major features are never finished, by definition ;)
> New ideas are coming regularly.
> What is needed now is, IMHO:
> - bigfixing
> - bugfixing ;)
> - automatic testing
> - polishing (symbology and other stuff)
> - infrastructure (central repo for plugins, styles, symbols, with user rating and
> comments, etc.).
> All the best.
I have completed a major QGIS project (see Encyclopedic Map of Baghdad 
at Amazon.com). I found that the map composer module wasn't strong 
enough for my needs. I exported each layer to Inkscape and did my final 
composition by hand. The only other feature I found that would be 
helpful would be the ability to rotate the orientation of the screen. 
I've seen requests for this feature poo-pooed before so I'm a little 
reluctant to bring the subject up. People digitizing objects would 
benefit most from this. Why? It has to do with the way human eyesight 
works. We expect to see a horizon. It is a real challenge to digitize 
things set at an angle and do it properly. It is more stressful to 
follow objects oriented at an angle which force the natural tendency to 
rotate one's head to the left or right to give the impression that the 
objects being focused on are on a "horizon". If we could rotate the 
screen to match the orientation to that of the group of objects being 
worked on we could have our horizon align with the bottom of the screen 
with the sides of the screen providing a reference angle of 90 deg. Not 
having to constantly crane one's head makes the digitizing process much 
easier. I did a lot of digitizing in Google Earth before they 
depreciated the UI and found the ability to rotate the screen very 
helpful. The options in the CAD Console are very helpful in this respect 
ie auto ortho. More CAD-like features to aid digitizing objects that 
share the same orientation, like streets and houses would be helpful. I 
realize this would be a major programming challenge so I only mention it 
in passing. Obviously we can work with the tools there now. On my 
project, I digitized 42,000 polygons. Almost a year's worth of work, 
many 7 day weeks, sometimes 14 hrs per day. Anything to make digitizing 
easier should be considered.

Now I'm onto another project and use QGIS every day. I wish I were in a 
position to offer programming aid. The best I can do is offer user 
feedback and praise QGIS whenever possible (see Slashgeo.org).

Yeha!