[Qgis-developer] Bringing diagrams into labeling-ng

[Alister Hood]

Hi everyone,

I somehow sent this to the old sourceforge list by mistake :(

I'm not a developer, but I saw this:

 

 

>>> it would be nice to be able to

>>>interactively place the diagrams as you have done with labels. How 

>>>would the diagram's placement be persisted? In the same way as labels


>>>using a specified columns? Some users have requested that label 

>>>placement could work like E$RI where the labels can be turned into 

>>>graphics and placement is stored in the project file (or whatever the


>>>ESRI equivalent of that is) - so that you don't

>> 

>> The placement would be the same as for labels (stored in columns). 

>> The option to change the objects to graphics would be nice. 

>> Technically, it could probably be done by turning the labels into 

>> annotation objects (QgsTextAnnotation). However, this is out of scope
for me at the moment.

> 

>I think the labels/diagrams do not have to be converted to graphics, 

>since that might complicate their connection with the layer and the 

>automatic placement (e.g. if the label text field is modified or the 

>placement should be recalculated because of changes in the layer).

> 

>I share Tim's opinion opinion that in future it would be good to allow 

>to save the placement in project file (or maybe an independent file).

>While keeping the placement information in layer attributes might be 

>convenient for some (as commented in follow up mail from Andreas), it 

>has some difficulties, too:

>- if a layer is used in various independent projects, the labeling 

>requirements might be different for each of them

>- it's not very user friendly if the users need to manually add new 

>attributes to the layer, assign them to labeling and learn what values 

>to put there

>- the approach using attributes is not that flexible: things like 

>curved labels or any custom labeling properties would be rather hard to


>represent in layer's attributes

 

 

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me that a much better 

solution would be to enable editing of joined tables in the table joins 

branch.  

Instead of being saved in the project file, label information could then


be saved in a joined table.  This would have the following advantages:

 

- The project file would not become bloated with label information

- Label information could be easily reused between projects

- The work done to implement it would benefit not only labelling, but 

also other uses of writable table joins.

 

I also guess that it might result in less of an increase in code 

complexity, and therefore be less of a burden for code maintenance... 

but I could well be wrong about this :)

 

Regards,

Alister

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