Mapserver 5 - Terminology clean-up

[Frank Warmerdam]

Havard Tveite wrote:
> 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).

Håvard,

I agree on the transparency/opacity fix.

For the scale change, are you suggesting that MAXSCALE and MINSCALE
would continue to work as they do now, but we would deprecate those keywords
in favor of MAXSCALE_DENOMINATOR and MINSCALE_DENOMINATOR keywords?  And
the new keywords would be the only ones documented?

While I'm not exactly excited about the idea, I would be willing to support
it in return for your agreement to review and improve reference and howto
information on how the min/max scale stuff work. :-)  It is a constant source
of confusion.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org