[Qgis-developer] Export to web: OpenLayers, Leaflet, Threejs

[Tom Chadwin]

Thanks, Riccardo, for bringing this discussion to my attention. I think we
need to proceed with caution, considering the following issues:

1. Bigger is not always better - specialized tools often yield better
results than big ones with every option under the sun bloating the code and
confusing the GUI.

2. How much common ground is there? Leaflet and OL3 are very different
beasts, and I would only want to merge if we thought there was sufficient
common functionality to merit merging.

3. There is much still to be achieved in qgis2leaf, and I wouldn't want to
slow this down by diverting development effort into what would be a massive
job.

However, other issues are also relevant:

1. qgis2leaf was written by Riccardo, and then added to by me, among others.
I hope Riccardo would not be offended when I say that neither of us is an
experienced Python programmer. Riccardo's observation that qgis2leaf has
grown organically is 100% correct. The code desperately needs rewriting.
NathanW looked at this early on, partially rewriting the plugin back at
around 0.7 in good Python, but Nathan was unable to finish that exercise,
and we were never able to incorporate this work.

2. There are features of the OL3 plugin which would benefit qgis2leaf
massively, specifically the GUI. At the moment, qgis2leaf's GUI does not
support any per-layer options, while the OL3 plugin does. Porting this
functionality over to qgis2leaf would be a massive improvement.

3. The focus needs to remain webmaps, not other formats. That is what
qgis2leaf and the OL3 plugin are there to create. We should not drift toward
a generic format export tool.

I quite like the initial idea of an initial "simple" merge, putting each
plugin in is own tab. We would then want to abstract the common elements to
a shared default tab, and then spin the Leaflet-/OL3-specific options into
their own tabs.

Don't get me wrong - this is exactly what Riccardo and I have been hoping
for - more developer involvement in qgis2leaf. If a merged plugin can be
carried out well, great. If not, then we should at least work towards
standardizing as much operation between the individual plugins as possible.

What do others think?

Thanks

Tom



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