request for comments...

[Stephen Lime]

I'm in the midst of implementing a new feature for 3.3 called "query maps".
In a nutshell they allow you to use the results of a query to generate a map.
The constructor is very simple, you specify 3 parameters status, style and 
a hilite color (if necessary). I envision 3 styles of query maps:

NORMAL - with this style the results of the query would be used to define
a map extent and then the map would be draw as normal with no special
attention payed to the query polygons. This would allow for item/value
queries to generate a map in one step rather than the current two. Embedding
maps if you know nothing about coordinates would be much easier this way.

HILITE - the map would be drawn as normal, but features that are part of
the query result set would be drawn using the hilite color. Very ArcView-ish.

SELECTED - for queried layers, only those features that are part of the 
result set would be drawn. They would be rendered normally with no hilites.
Especially useful with item/value queries. Non-query layers would be drawn
as normal.

Note that queries are limited to shapefiles only. Tiled data is not queryable.

(Using perl and data from other sources will in effect give you query access
to those sources since drawing is done feature by feature.)

Anyway, I'd like to get comments from folks on this extension. Other ideas and
so on. I can envision some very sophisticated apps just using what I've outlined
above.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us