[Qgis-developer] Print composer changes: several side-effects

Olivier Dalang olivier.dalang at gmail.com
Wed Feb 20 08:13:07 PST 2013


The thing a like with having a frame by default is that you still see
the element even if its blank. Currently, when creating a map which
displays nothing (no visible layer) you can loose it on the layout.

2013/2/20 Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net>:
> Hi Olivier,
>
> Thank you for your reply. For me its fine. I had to change other stuff in my
> layouts anyway (new email address, etc.). I am almost through all the
> changes.
>
> My projects have to stay on the current version all the time. They should
> live for several years and improve gradually - along with improvements in
> QGIS. It is not an option to have older QGIS versions around for older
> projects. But that's our problem.
>
> So basic shapes (rects, ellipses, triangles) should have a black stroke by
> default - a stroke-width of 0.2 mm, in my opinion. All other elements
> probably without a frame and background by default. Does this make sense?
>
> Thanks,
> Andreas
>
>
> On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:51:16 +0100, Olivier Dalang wrote:
>>
>> Hi !
>>
>> Those change appear because some properties have been added and some
>> removed to make the UI and the code more consistent (removing
>> duplicate border color settings for Shape item, for instance).
>> Upon opening an old project, the added properties will be set to
>> default, while the duplicate one will take the old unused property.
>>
>> I'd say there's no easy way to avoid such side-effects (without coding
>> some dirty compatibility code). One way to handle such changes would
>> be to implement a kind of "old version file converter" to allow
>> backwards compatibility without making the code too complex.
>>
>> But I'm not sure that if it's worth it. A general rule in software
>> usage is to keep the same version of the software throughout a
>> project, an to use new versions only when starting new projects.
>>
>>
>> However, it is possible to discuss if which composer items should have
>> a background and/or frame by default. (in your case, this could change
>> whether composer items should have a background by default)
>>
>> For now, I think all the composer items have a white background and no
>> frame by default, excepted the ComposerShape which has also a frame.
>>
>>
>> Olivier
>>
>>
>>
>> 2013/2/20 Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net>:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> With the recent modifications in print composer, while I agree that the
>>> UI
>>> has much improved, there are unfortunately also some side-effects. Here
>>> are
>>> two problems I have detected:
>>>
>>> * legend boxes which had a white background now have a transparent
>>> background
>>> * Basic shapes (like rects, ellipses, triangles) that had a black border
>>> now
>>> have either no border or a white border
>>>
>>> For organizations like us, with a lot of QGIS projects with a lot of
>>> different layouts, this is quite annoying if we have to manually change
>>> each
>>> of the projects.
>>>
>>> But I am also aware that we are using master / unstable and that there
>>> are
>>> modifications. I can live with such changes but I assume that other users
>>> will have similar problems if backwards compatibility breaks.
>>>
>>> Just to let you know - thanks for the improvements in the UI!
>>>
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> Andreas Neumann
>>> Böschacherstrasse 10A
>>> 8624 Grüt (Gossau ZH)
>>> Switzerland
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Qgis-developer mailing list
>>> Qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
>
>
> --
> --
> Andreas Neumann
> Böschacherstrasse 10A
> 8624 Grüt (Gossau ZH)
> Switzerland


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