Mapserver 5 - Terminology clean-up

[Steve Lime]

Even MAXSCALE_DEMOMINATOR is not truely correct, it really should be
MAXREPRESENTATIVEFRACTION_DENOMINATOR. IMHO Scale (as a number) 
in itself has  been confusing with web mapping from the begining given that it 
is never correct and is used only for relative decision making or scaling. Rather
than changing keywords and futher bloating the language I'd almost rather
support an alternative method of setting scale, e.g.:

MINSCALE 1:100000

That would be easy to do when parsing a mapfile, although a bit more problematic
for MapScript. The old method and new method would both work. Internally we'd
still store the value as a double.

Steve

>>> Havard Tveite <havard.tveite at umb.no> 10/24/2006 4:27:54 AM >>>
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