[Qgis-developer] In with the new, out with the old?

[Carson Farmer]

Hi Devs,

One of my favorite outcomes from developing fTools, is actually when
one or two fTools functions become redundant due to new features in
base QGIS. The reason isn't because that means one less tool for me to
worry about, but rather because it means things are progressing... and
with QGIS things are progressing big time! In that vein, I would like
to propose several tool 'retirements' from fTools. While I tend to
feel that several ways to do the same thing is helpful/good, it can
also get confusing if those different procedures produce varying
results. As such, I think it would be appropriate to retire the
following tools:
- Export/add geometry columns (this can now be done quite easily from
the field calculator, and my version appears to have issues with
certain vector formats)
- Export to new projection (this can now be achieved by "Sav[ing] a
layer as...")
- Join attributes (this was never really meant as a 'solution', but
rather a temporary 'hack' to allow for table joints, but it is slow
and combersome, and requires the creation of a new field, whereas the
new join capabilities are excellent, fast, and excellent!)
- fTools information (nobody needs to know what fTools is anymore, and
frankly, this info should really be part of the help system and
documentation... also, I think this dialog often interferes with
help/about on macs?)

Some other potential 'retirees' are:

- Select by location (I think there is a 'Spatial Query' plugin which
has this functionality plus much more, and appears to be quite fast)
- Define current projection (Is this covered by the new 'Set CRS of
Layer(s)' tool? I haven't had much of a play with this one yet, but it
sounds like it should, and is more convenient being part of the main
GUI)

Let me know what you think. Should these be completely retired, or
should they perhaps just be wrappers around their replacements to keep
things familiar? I think I'd be leaning more towards full retirement,
which should hopefully promote doing things 'the right way' (i.e.
using the new core QGIS functionality).

Regards,

Carson


-- 
Carson J. Q. Farmer
ISSP Doctoral Fellow
National Centre for Geocomputation
National University of Ireland, Maynooth,
http://www.carsonfarmer.com/