[Mapserver-users] Focus on labelling

[Steve Lime]

Labeling has not changed appreciably between 3.6 and 4.0 for a couple of
reasons. The first being that we now rely on the labeling code that is
part of GD. MapServer controls the placement, but not the actual
rendering of the text. So for things like alignment/justification I'd
prefer to let the GD developers do that, or at least first understand
their plans before heading down that road. 

Splining has been on the todo list for some time. But it's not exactly
a trivial modification and without funding (or a burning personal need)
it has slipped down the list a bit. I do hope to add it sometime in the
version 4 lifespan.

Formating of numbers is a bit more problematic. Within MapServer all
attribute data is stored as strings (easier that way) and attribute type
information is not carried forward from the datasource (if it even
exists) so adding something like a FORMAT option won't work. Rather I
think we could add something like a sprintf/format function to the
expression parser so you could do something like:

TEXT 'Value is format("%.2d", [COLUMN])'

where normal sprintf/printf format strings are accepted and the parser
takes the context of the substitution as a way to determine type. Could
be some interesting errors that could crop up though.

None of this will make it into the basic 4.0 release so I'd appreciate
if you added your ideas to bugzilla (one at a time) so that they might
be addressed in upcoming releases.

Steve

Stephen Lime
Data & Applications Manager

Minnesota DNR
500 Lafayette Road
St. Paul, MN 55155
651-297-2937

>>> "Giorgio Plazzotta" <plazzotta at tiscalinet.it> 06/16/03 10:25AM >>>
Hi all, i would like to check what is the situation of labelling and
how it will work in the next releases, asking the interventions of the
developers and other users.

Starting from my need to have an alignment option when I label and wrap
a text, after having already discussed this subject in the mailing list
it seems that there's no better way to do this than doing two different
declarations for the same class in the Mapfile, that's not really the
best solution.
I just checked Bugzilla and I didn't see any request of enhancement to
do this so I have to assume that this funcionality won't be available in
the next releases, am I right?

I also saw that there are requests about implementing the spline
labelling, and the formatting of numbers.
I would like the developers to focus about the labelling funcionalities
that will be available in the next versions, if possible.
thanx