[Qgis-user] columns in spatialite

[Bernd Vogelgesang]

Am 11.11.2015, 21:55 Uhr, schrieb X Of <xof.biz at gmail.com>:

> Am 11.11.2015 um 07:59 schrieb Micha Silver:
>> Unfortunately I easily forget how sql
>>> works, so doing "easy" stuff becomes very time consuming and  
>>> frustrating.
>
> I think this is a usual problem for us non-regular SQL-users (for any  
> database-system).
>
> To avoid figuring out complex or even simple queries (imho all  
> geo-spatial queries are relatively difficult) I always keep a  
> code-editor-window open, where I copy-paste to and from all successful  
> queries (and also comment on how they work, even if I think it's silly.  
> Next morning I'm grateful for it already).
>
> New queries I usually draft in the code-editor first. This way I don't  
> even have to remember the exact table-names or column names, I can just  
> start typing and wait for the editor's autocomplete-suggestions.
>
> I think this is quite a good way of working, because this way I can  
> always and easily reproduces my work, if anything should go wrong with  
> the databases/views...
>
> Hope this helps avoiding some frustrations. To me, spatialite rocks even  
> with all it's quirks here and there! Thanks to everyone contributing to  
> spatialite and QGIS.
> _____________________________


Of course this is a nice strategy when you are disciplined person and  
always remember to open the editor and then not forget where you stored  
your file ;)

Actually, my use-case for spatialite is much more simple. I normally do  
not need any special/spacial queries, I just want to replace ESRI shape  
file as the standard exchange format (do not have to zip 3 + x files  
before sending by email) and also as the standard work format (getting rid  
of computer-stone-age dbf limitations like column names and field lengths).

But so far, I can not really introduce it in my daily work-flows  
efficiently, cause of limitations simple as renaming or reordering  
columns. Even when you really carefully plan an attribute table set-up,  
you ALWAYS forget sth or put it in the wrong order. Having to dig out sql  
for this, I'm simply to lazy and most other users are definitely out of  
the game at this moment. (Of course it would be very rewarding to learn  
sql by heart, but for everyday quick-and-dirty tasks, this is just to much  
rocket science to be efficient)

And even when you start out correctly with all your fields and names and  
everything, you use Processing and BAMM, everything's fucked up again by  
ESRI shape files when you just want to have a temporary layer and do not  
wish to save each and every trial or iteration to a file. Of course I  
COULD do this, but then the half of the benefits of Processing are lost.  
So I stay with the be-hated ESRI format.

My dream would be, to be able to simply use the spatialite format as  
seamless as QGIS works now with ESRI shapes.
Later on, the extended sql-abilities would be nice goody for special  
cases, but I am more for the bread-and-butter tasks at the moment.

So, to answer to Paolo's question about what is missing in DBManager:  
Actually nothing in my case, cause I really do not want to use it at all.  
I just would like to be able to act with spatialite layers as I am able to  
do with ESRI shapefile layers.

That's why I asked in the beginning about a Table-Manager-like plugin to  
at least be able to rename/reorder columns (Strange enough that Table  
Manager is not even installed and activated by default, though ESRI shape  
files are the standard work format, and novices will not so easily find  
out how to edit them, while in ArcGIS this is just possible without any  
user interaction)

Regards
Bernd

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Bernd Vogelgesang
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