[Mapserver-users] A STYLE with no COLOR is hardly a STYLE

[Steve Lime]

Ryan: You do essentially loose a color when drawing a polygon outline
since it's the absence of a color and the presence of outlinecolor that
triggers the line drawing in the first place. Most line symbols don't
use outlinecolor anyway, but truetypes are one good example of those
that do. That said, you're the first one to notice the limitation ever,
so "seriously limits" may be an overstatement. ;-) Type may be one way
to fix this so please file a bug and I'll look into it for 4.4. In the
meantime the suggested workaround works nicely and is not too costly if
you're data isn't too huge...

Steve

>>> "Pericles S. Nacionales" <nacional at cbs.umn.edu> 07/02/04 9:17 PM >>>
Ryan,

I see your point but in Tyler's defense, he did say workaround.  Perhaps
you should file a feature request/bug report in bugzilla.  If you can
convince Steve and the other developers then you might have it quickly. 
I do like the idea of being able to define the polygon outline style in
the same style as the polygon fill.

But here's another work around.  Or, as I'd prefer to call, an
alternative method: 1. Define your layer as polygon but don't define an
outline color.  2. Create another layer from the same data but define
TYPE as line, also call it the same layer name (or define a GROUP name
for the two layers).  Define your line STYLE on this layer.

Now, when you select the layer name, both of the layers are drawn.

So, while I like your idea I think the alternative I just showed you is
pretty flexible.

Cheers!
-Perry


On Fri, 2004-07-02 at 16:30, Ryan, Adam wrote:
> Sean,
> 
> Thanks for the reply.  Using multiple layers for stylistic reasons
runs
> counter to the concept of the STYLE object.
> 
> I'll just put this out again...why not have a TYPE parameter in the
STYLE
> object?
> 
> Thanks again,
> 
> Adam
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean Gillies [mailto:sgillies at frii.com] 
> Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 11:57 AM
> To: Ryan, Adam
> Cc: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: Re: [Mapserver-users] A STYLE with no COLOR is hardly a STYLE
> 
> 
> On Jul 2, 2004, at 10:29 AM, Ryan, Adam wrote:
> 
> >
> > Dear List,
> >
> > I'm having a hard time with the concept of treating polygons as
lines
> > when
> > there is no COLOR parameter in a STYLE object.  This seriously
limits 
> > the
> > great improvement that stacked STYLE objects provide by essentially
> > forbidding a foreground color of a line-type STYLE.  Many STYLE 
> > objects that
> > render wonderfully in line-type LAYERs are simply not reproducible
in
> > polygon-type LAYERs.
> >
> > For example, if I want to use a 'railroad tie' style as an outline
of 
> > a simple fill style in a polygon-type layer, I'd want to use a
symbol 
> > like this that works in line-type layers:
> >
> > SYMBOL
> >   NAME "tie"
> >   TYPE truetype
> >   FONT "arial"
> >   CHARACTER "|"
> >   GAP 10
> > END
> >
> > Problem is, with no COLOR parameter (which I can't use because it 
> > would cause the features to be filled by this symbol) all I can get
is 
> > a 3 pixel wide outlined character if I use OUTLINECOLOR, or nothing
at 
> > all.
> >
> > Is this correct or am I missing something here?
> >
> > The push toward STYLE objects is right on, so why not put a TYPE
> > parameter
> > in the STYLE object?
> >
> > Adam Ryan
> 
> Adam,
> 
> You have a good point.  The current work-around is to
> 
> 1) define a polygon-type layer for the fill
> 2) define a line-type layer for the polygon boundary using the very
>     same data as the polygon fill layer.
> 
> That you can render polygons as lines is a poorly documented and
explained
> feature.
> 
> cheers,
> Sean
> 
> --
> Sean Gillies
> sgillies at frii dot com
> http://users.frii.com/sgillies
> _______________________________________________
> Mapserver-users mailing list
> Mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> http://lists.gis.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users
-- 
"He's no geek.His tan's too good." -Benjamin Choate

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