[Qgis-user] Question on default file formats
Bernd Vogelgesang
bernd.vogelgesang at gmx.de
Tue Jul 28 14:23:26 PDT 2015
Hi Andreas,
Am 28.07.2015, 21:54 Uhr, schrieb Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net>:
> Hi Arni,
>
> I think the QGIS community should start an effort to better support the
> Geopackage format (or any OGR format) - and should spend >some financial
> resources to allow a developer to work several days to improve support
> for the Geopackage format. I suggested that >to the QGIS PSC, but it
> doesn't seem to be a priority at the moment. Other issues seem to be
> more pressing (such as bug fixing, >infrastructure, developer meetings).
>
> However, any organization can come up and fund development to improve
> the situation. Or start a crowd-funding initiative to >collect financial
> ressources from several organizations/people. It is just that noone had
> enough resources (money or time) to get >rid of the Shapefiles in many
> places.
it is easily said, that the community should start an effort, but how
should this be organized, if it's not organized by the organization
already existing?
You have a much better insight into the structure and the people involved
than most of us.
The recent crowd-funding initiatives I witnessed (and donated for) were
successfull, even though the average users presumably had no idea what the
subjects were about (automated testing:
http://blog.vitu.ch/10102014-1046/crowdfunding-initiative-automated-testing
, GRASS Plugin upgrade:
http://www.gissula.eu/qgis-grass-plugin-crowdfunding/ )
But those initiatives came from the developers themselves, who exactly
know what has to be done, how much time it will take, and how much money
has to be there to get things done.
To start an arbitrary crowd-funding initiative just by anyone, with no
idea how to actually define the goal and not even having a developer at
hand is possible, but is it a good idea?
When things then go wrong, the hole way of supporting the project will be
discredited.
Quite some while ago, I made the proposal to set up a website, where
people could search or post feature requests, which could be up- or
downvoted by other users, which could be managed/moderated/combined/split
by "experts" and after some time, for the best-rated proposal(s), a
crowd-funding initiative would be started.
The echo on this proposal from the "officials" was not really
enthusiastic. Reasons: No time, no money, not enough developers.
Vicious circle completed...
QGIS is a developer-driven project, and I can imagine that the devs prefer
a sponsor with a defined goal and 5.000€.
I can maybe donate 25€ on something (ahh, I would even spend 50€ to get
rid of f... shape files, and I'm sure that we would find another 100
people feeling the same).
>
> The most difficult problem to solve is Processing with SAGA, but other
> than that, at least the "Save AS" and the vector menu could >be improved
> to offer e.g. Geopackage as default, or let the user choose any OGR
> format.
>
> If you would start such an initiative I would very much support it. And
> who knows - maybe even the QGIS PSC would partially >support such an
> initiative (maybe also financially).
Wouldn't it be better to start a crowd-funding initiative with the goal,
to set up a proper regime for crowd-funding feature requests by setting up
the necessary infrastructure (website), paying someone to take care of the
requests and deal with possible developers?
May sound a bit weird, but still better than the frequent "You could hire
someone to code this feature"-answers on this list.
But who would organize this?
... in the vicious circle again ...
I nevertheless love QGIS :)
Bernd
>
> Andreas
>
>
> On 28.07.2015 18:20, Árni Geirsson wrote:
>> Thank you Alex - that answers my question completely.
>> Arni
>>
>>
>> Árni Geirsson
>> Alta ehf // +354 582 5000 // +354 897 9549www.alta.is // Alta á
>> Twitter // Alta á Facebook
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 4:15 PM, Alex Mandel
>> <tech_dev at wildintellect.com> wrote:
>>> It's more elaborate than that. Not all applications in the toolbox can
>>> read Spatialite yet either (e.g. SAGA). So the intermediate is
>>> something
>>> all the tools can use. At some point the toolbox might get developed to
>>> were any ogr data source can be used for the intermediates, but it
>>> isn't
>>> there yet. I ran into this issue with Postgis a couple of years ago,
>>> and
>>> the whole point of using Postgis was to escape the limitations of the
>>> shapefile (particularly file size).
>>>
>>> In some ways if you use Spatialite or Postgis you don't actually need a
>>> lot of the basic tools as those can all be done with SQL via the DB
>>> Manager or QSpatialite.
>>>
>>> As for Geopackage, keep in mind it's an exchange format. Even with 2.8
>>> I've had no issues reading GPKG files in, though I've been creating
>>> them
>>> with ogr2ogr on the command line to convert whole databases at a time
>>> between Spatialite and other formats.
>>>
>>> Shapefile still remains the lowest common denominator. I agree other
>>> formats should be suggested first by the save dialog since shp can
>>> cause
>>> data loss (date/time, field names, etc).
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Alex
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> On 07/28/2015 09:04 AM, Árni Geirsson wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the answer Jim. I understand that the shapefiles are lingua
>>>> franca but to me that would imply that they should be used when
>>>> exchange
>>>> with other applications is needed - which is not always. But I had not
>>>> realized that I might be constraining the set of available tools if I
>>>> use
>>>> SpatiaLite. Does this mean that if I have my date in SpatiaLite, many
>>>> of
>>>> the tools in the Processing toolbox would not be available to me?
>>>>
>>>> Arni
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Árni Geirsson
>>>> *Alta ehf* // +354 582 5000 // +354 897 9549
>>>> www.alta.is // Alta á Twitter <http://twitter.com/alta_ehf> // Alta á
>>>> Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alta/161795813838691?v=wall>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 3:54 PM, James Keener <jim at jimkeener.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> More tools support it. Spatialite wasn't supported in esri until very
>>>>> recently and other tools may not support anything but shape files.
>>>>> It's
>>>>> become a lingual franca, and like English: it's terrible, but works
>>>>> well
>>>>> enough.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim
>>>>>
>>>>> On July 28, 2015 11:38:24 AM AST, "Árni Geirsson" <arni at alta.is>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello
>>>>>> I find it interesting that the ancient shapefile format is (or at
>>>>>> least
>>>>>> appears to be) the default file format for QGIS when SpatiaLite
>>>>>> seems to be
>>>>>> a much more capable format. I have been using mostly shapefiles and
>>>>>> when
>>>>>> using for example the tools under the vector menu, intermediate
>>>>>> results are
>>>>>> saved as shapefiles, leading to a big pile of files after a short
>>>>>> session
>>>>>> of vector processing. Now, I have discovered that by using the
>>>>>> processing
>>>>>> tools the intermediates can be temporary files (still shapefiles,
>>>>>> just
>>>>>> hidden away in a temporary folder). After saving a temporary file
>>>>>> as a
>>>>>> SpatiaLite file, I can enter field names longer than 10 characters
>>>>>> but I
>>>>>> can not add a text field that accommodates more than 255 characters.
>>>>>> So my question is: Why is the shapefile format the default?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have also noticed that with 2.10 I can save in Geopackage format.
>>>>>> Does
>>>>>> that mean that support for this format has improved?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any insights are highly appreciated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Arni Geirsson
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Qgis-user mailing list
>>>>>> Qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
--
Bernd Vogelgesang
Siedlerstraße 2
91083 Baiersdorf/Igelsdorf
Tel: 09133-825374
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