[Qgis-developer] Remaining work to get rid of old labeling?

[Larry Shaffer]

Hi Andreas,

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:28 AM, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:
> Hi Larry, Hi all,
>
> At the Essen developer meeting we discussed that we want to get rid of
> the double versions (labeling, symbology, diagrams - more?)
>
> The new diagram are now in good shape thanks to the work of Matthias
> Kuhn and Marco Hugentobler.
>
> I now that Larry did a tremendous amount of work on the new label
> engine, next to the work Marco H. and Martin Dobias did before.
>
> I don't have the exact overview what features from the old engine are
> not yet present in the new engine.
>
> In Essen we proposed that we ask Larry to continue his work to get rid
> of the old label engine - and we proposed that we would pay a certain
> amount of our funds to Larry for this work.
>
> Question to Larry and the PSC? What is the status of this work? Was
> there any agreement so far between the PSC and Larry to fund his work?
> Larry - would you have time to continue working on it so we can get rid
> of the old labeling?

There are two lists you can reference on the wiki (both of which I
updated, or reorganized a bit, this morning)[0][1]. Neither of the
lists speaks directly to what exactly needs done to remove the old
labeling.

There is at least one major issue remaining (that I know of):

Label text should be preserved as text in output (regression) - This
issue also possibly relates to the slower performance many users are
seeing between the old labeling and new. Dr. Marco H. mentioned he
thinks the older method using QPainter::drawText() might be faster
than the current QPainterPath::addText() method. However, I'm not sure
all new features can be done using the older method. Regardless, using
a different method where possible, one that outputs text as text,
would be very beneficial when using the resultant SVG or PDF output in
other applications. Users currently rely upon the old engine for that
purpose.

I am not sure if any other QGIS functionality still uses the old
labeling engine. Even so, at least updating the new engine's features
to the point of removing the old engine's gui should be a priority;
while removing the old labeling engine code could be done later.

Regarding any funding, beyond the noted issue above, you might want to
review list at [1] for candidates on what you would specifically like
to see in version 2.0. The new end-of-December feature freeze means I
have to start paring that list down.

[0] http://hub.qgis.org/wiki/quantum-gis/Switching_from_Old_to_New_Symbology_and_Labeling#Labeling
[1] http://hub.qgis.org/wiki/quantum-gis/New_Labeling_changes_and_roadmap

Regards,

Larry Shaffer
Dakota Cartography
Black Hills, South Dakota

> Thanks for an update on it.
>
> Andreas