[Qgis-user] Do you use the MemoryLayerSaver plugin?

[Chris Crook]

Hi All

I maintain the MemoryLayerSaver plugin and I'm looking for some feedback on the next iteration of the plugin.

Currently the plugin saves all memory provider layers as GML files alongside the project file, creating 2 files for each layer.  So for example there if there is a layer called scratch point then you might have files called

tms1.qgs
tms1.qgs.md_Scratch_point20120814084820149.gml
tms1.qgs.md_Scratch_point20120814084820149.xsd
This is done using the OGR GML driver, and the latest version of this has created some incompatibility issues.

What I am proposing is to the replace the GML files with a single binary file, say

tms1.qgs
tms1.qgs.mldata

This will contain the data from all the memory layers, serialized in a portable but otherwise unusable binary format.  By portable here I mean that the project can be moved to a different machine/platform and the memory layers should load properly.  The file is only useful for reading the layers back into QGIS, not for accessing the data with any other utilities.  I believe that this is consistent with the intent of memory layers - they are just for working on in QGis - and if you want to save them to another format then you save them to the format of your choice from QGis.

I will upload an experimental version 2.0 of the plugin which implements this to plugins.qgis.org

I have considered another format, which is an SQLite database.  However this creates another set of issues in mapping layers, data types, etc to SQLite formats and back again.  I probably would not use spatialite, as this would add another dependency on the Memory Layer Saver.  Ideally the MemoryLayerSaver should be a core C++ plugin, so that it has no other dependencies (ie doesn't depend on python either).

Any thoughts or feedback on this direction are welcome.

Thanks
Chris
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