[Qgis-developer] TileServer as layer for qgis

[Richard Duivenvoorde]

Hi All,

having looked at Kai Winter's very nice QMapControl 
http://medieninf.de/qmapcontrol/, a QtWidget capable of showing maps 
from different Map Tile services (OpenStreetmap, Yahoo, GoogleMaps), I'm 
wondering what is the best way to have this kind of functionality in 
QGis also. Having the possibility to show an openstreetmap as 
background-map for data availabe in Sperical Mercator, would be a very 
nice feature of qgis (for people generating mapimages, not for hardcore 
gismen?).

I'm aware of Martin's OSM plans, but was not finding it in his plans in 
the short term (http://mapserver.sk/~wonder/swproj/spec.html ??)?

Questions:
- what would be the best way to implement this:
1) incorporating Kai's QMapControl
2) writing it as a Python plugin
3) writing it as a c++ layer/plugin

- is there already some notion in Qgis for 'fixed scales', needed for 
this kind of layers (I think...).

Because I'm not a cpp-dev I thought to start off with a python plugin, 
but get stuck in finding possibilities for painting a tile on a new 
(raster?) layer.

Can somebody give me a hint or some information about different 
possibilities? Or what their opinion if for the best strategy to achieve 
this kind of funcionality?

TIA, Regards,

Richard Duivenvoorde

ps my 2 cent's about releasing 1.0.0 or waiting for the labeling stuff, 
I would vote for a release in december