[Qgis-user] QGIS presence at the AGIT conference in Salzburg

[Anita Graser]

Hi,

I've been to AGIT for three years now and both the conference itself and
the interest in open source GIS is growing steadily. Especially after
Andreas' and Werner's sessions, people found their way to our booth.

For the next AGIT, I think it would be good to try to get the FOSSGIS
Austria group (http://wiki.alpine-geckos.at/wiki/FOSSGIS_UserGroup_Austria)
to Salzburg. Especially if we want to organize our own QGIS track, we'll
need some more people.

Some of the topics discussed at the QGIS booth were:

- Sextante: It offers great potential but at the same time it's still
experimental - leading to

- Plugins: A common problem is that users are unaware that they are
installing an experimental plugin. Once you allow "experimental" plugins in
the Installer, all possible plugins will be listed without any additional
note on whether they are stable or not. Users simply expect them to work
and will be disappointed. The plugin list should clearly show which plugins
are ready for production use and which are experimental.

- Icons: It's been noted multiple times that the default icon set is ugly
and should be replaced by the "GIS" set as a default.

- Customization: Most users are still unaware of the customization feature.
At the same time, there is wide agreement that the default interface (after
first installation) is too much for the non-professional.

Best wishes,
Anita



On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The AGIT conference (http://www.agit.at/) was held last week. It is a
> german speaking conference (application related) but there is also a
> more scientific english track.
>
> We had a small booth with a poster and laptop and tablet presenting
> QGIS. People especially liked the ability to deliver content to
> different media with QGIS: desktop, tablet, phone, web, web services,
> print. This is definitely a strength we should build on.
>
> We also had a workshop on "Cartography with QGIS" with about 35
> participants (more than we had PCs in the computer lab). The room was
> too small for the workshop. Many of the participants did not know QGIS
> and were quite impressed about the capabilities in symbolization,
> labeling and the print composer.
>
> Next year we have the opportunity to organize a german-speaking QGIS
> track (one day or half day) at the conference if we have enough
> presentations. If you would be interesting in contributing (presentation
> or workshop) please let us know. We will also send out reminders when
> the call for participation runs. I would also especially be interested
> in contributions from Austrian QGIS users.
>
> QGIS was also present in two of the three keynotes, which was nice to
> see. In one keynote, unfortunately it was a representation of a
> complicated desktop GIS (for non GIS-experts) - though the speaker
> mentioned that the situation is worse with ArcGIS. His message was that
> most or all of the existing desktop GIS are too complicated for average,
> non-expert users. Why should the user be bothered by complicated
> CRS/EPSG codes? Why is zooming and panning so slow compared to Google
> maps? Why are the dialogues so complicated? Obviously it is not so easy
> to reach out to both experts (with a lot of options) and the occasional
> user or newbie.
>
> He also presented a small Android mobile GIS for people in Africa who
> can report illegal forest activities with the GPS-powered device. A GIS
> for people who cannot even read and write, made with simple dialogues
> with only images instead of text to choose.
>
> Anita, Werner or Stefan - can you please add your own impressions from
> the conference?
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
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