Mapserver 5 - Terminology clean-up

[Havard Tveite]

Steve Lime wrote:
> I agree on 2) since it's somewhat lightly used, and your suggestion makes a lot of sense. However, 1) has been around so long and is so in-grained that it would likely cause more problems than it would solve. Just my opinion.

It is my perception that Mapserver is using sound
terminology throughout.  That is why I think it is
important to fix the very few errors that are present.
I would not bother about this if Mapserver had not been
so well made and well documented as it is.
I am exposing my students to Mapserver, and I do not want
its terminology to be a bad example and a source of
confusion.

1) I am very glad you agree on the TRANSPARENCY / OPACITY
    suggestion.

2) I do not think that the "has been around for so long..."
    argument is good enough to stop us from correcting
    terminology.
    I presume that all map literates will have problems the
    first time they try to use MAXSCALE - MINSCALE.
    I do not think this is what we want.
    AND - by preserving the old as a prefix for the new, we
    do not have to break backwards compatibility.
    The new keywords will be long.  Perhaps they should be
    truncated a bit (MAXSCALE_DENOM / MINSCALE_DENOM)?


I hope this is not "end of discussion", as I would very
much like to hear the opinion of others (I hope you are
not totally indifferent).

Regards,

Håvard

> 
> Steve
> 
>>>> Havard Tveite <havard.tveite at UMB.NO> 10/20/06 8:32 AM >>>
> Dear mapserver developers,
> 
> When moving to a new major version, one should take the
> opportunity to do some cleaning up of the terminology
> used in Mapserver.
> 
> I have found two serious terminology "lapses" in
> Mapserver.  There may be more.
> 
> 1) MAXSCALE / MINSCALE (LABELMAXSCALE / LABELMINSCALE
> 
>     1:100000 is a smaller scale than 1:1000!
>     In Mapserver, however, MAXSCALE/MINSCALE terminology,
>     1:100000 is a larger scale than 1:1000.
> 
>     Proposed remedy:
>     Change MAXSCALE / MINSCALE to
>     MAXSCALE_DENOMINATOR / MINSCALE_DENOMINATOR
>     (the same should be done for LABELMAXSCALE/LABELMINSCALE)
> 
>     By keeping the old keyword as a suffix of the new, old
>     map files could still parse (truncation flexibility).
>     I have previously comment on this on
>     http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/reference/mapfile/layer (2005-07-19 04:17
> 
> 2) TRANSPARENCY (layer)
>     This keyword has the opposite meaning of what one would
>     expect.
>     I site from the documentation:
>     "TRANSPARENCY [integer|alpha]
>     ... Although this parameter is named "transparency", the
>     integer values actually parameterize layer opacity. A value
>     of 100 is opaque and 0 is fully transparent."
> 
>     Proposed change:
>     Introduce a new keyword OPACITY and "mark" the TRANSPARENCY
>     keyword as deprecated (with a link to OPACITY).
>     Old map files could still parse by keeping TRANSPARENCY as an
>     "alias" for OPACITY.
> 
> 
> By the way... Thank you for your tremendous effort in making
> Mapserver the excellent peace of web mapping software it is
------------------------> piece!!!
> today!!
> 

-- 
Håvard Tveite
Department of Mathematical Sciences and Technology, UMB
Drøbakveien 14, POBox 5003, N-1432 Ås, NORWAY
Phone: +47 64965483 Fax: +47 64965401 http://www.umb.no/imt