[mapserver-dev] MS RFC 61: Enhance MapServer Feature Style Support

[Stephen Woodbridge]

On 9/15/2010 2:53 PM, Tamas Szekeres wrote:
>
>
> 2010/9/15 Stephen Woodbridge <woodbri at swoodbridge.com
> <mailto:woodbri at swoodbridge.com>>
>
>
>     I have not used OGR styles or SLD styles before so it is hard to
>     comment on that specifically. There has also been discussions of
>     implementing named styles that could then be referenced, but I'm not
>     sure that went very far.
>
>     Your proposal is very straight forward and seems to make sense by
>     itself. I am wondering if it is time to have a discussion about how
>     we want to handle styles in general with respect to meeting the
>     various needs. I think better support for libraries or a collection
>     of styles is needed. I think having some strategy or overall plan in
>     this regard will make it easier us, but then someone needs to have a
>     vision for how this might work :)
>
>
>
> Steve,
>
> As far as I remember we've already discussed about this topic in this
> list. I don't remember about the straight conclusion of the discussion
> but it seemed to me we was quite uncertain about whether we should
> commit ourself to a single style representation or not. I would vote on
> implementing all of the reasonable formats in parallel, but till that
> time implement at least one. With that, we could move a bit further on
> the concept of the STYLEITEM, which is now a privilege of the OGR driver
> solely.

I would agree the we probably need some styleitem implementation(s) to 
get a handle on what the more abstract requirements down the road might 
be, so getting something started is good.

I think the conclusion of the past discussions on named styles was to 
put them in include files and then just include them where needed. This 
obviously does not work for a styleitem implementation.

So WRT your RFC, I was not clear if there are a standard set of styles 
defined and implemented for OGR, MapInfo, etc that we plan to support? 
and if so where are these defined? A link in the RFC would be good. Can 
a user define there own style? How does this work? A simple example 
would help.

Thanks,
   -Steve W