[Qgis-developer] New latlontools plugin

[C Hamilton]

I just uploaded my latlontools plugin to the QGIS plugin site. I know it is
going to need some explanation as it duplicates some existing
functionality, but it was born out of frustration with the existing
plugins. Let me clarify that I am not saying there is anything wrong with
how these plugins work. They may be perfectly suited for the needs of their
users, but my work flow was such that they did not satisfy my needs and
even the time I spent in writing the plugin was well worth the time I saved
later with my work flow. LatLonTools is designed to work in conjunction
with Google Maps and other on-line mapping.



The plugins that LatLonTools has the most similarity with are Coordinate
Capture, Copy_Coords, and ZoomToCoordinates, and Zoom to Point.



The reason I wrote LatLonTools was because I was looking at archaeological
sites in Lidar hill shade and was comparing what I was viewing in QGIS with
imagery in Google Map, Google Earth, and some other mapping tools. I was
also working with coordinates in Wikipedia. All of these represent
coordinates as geographic latitude and longitudes either in decimal or DMS
notation. They all specify latitude followed by longitude usually with a
comma separator. LatLonTools uses latitude and longitude coordinates no
matter what the CRS of the QGIS project is - hence the name LatLonTools. It
was also important to be able to copy the coordinates verbatim usually in
the format "latitude, longitude" with slight variations and paste them into
my plugin in one text field (not two) and zoom to that point. Conversely I
wanted a single click in QGIS to copy a coordinate that I could paste in
Google Maps or Google Earth and zoom to that point. For my use this is the
problem with the existing plugins:



Zoom to Point:

1. Does not support DMS coordinates.

2. Has separate text fields for entering coordinates.

3. Requires coordinates in the CRS of the QGIS project and this may not be
in degrees.



Zoom to Coordinates

1. Does not support DMS coordinates.

2. Has separate text fields for entering coordinates.

3. Requires coordinates in the CRS of the QGIS project and this may not be
in degrees.

4. Not dockable.



Coordinate Capture

Although I have listed this one, it really doesn't compare to LatLonTools
because LatLonTools only captures to the clipboard so I am going to rule it
out as a similar plugin.

1. Does not support DMS notation.

2. Can capture the coordinate to the clipboard but it is in the format
of  "Longitude,
Latitude, Native CRS X, Native CRS Y" and is not suitable to paste into
Google Earth.

3. Even if you could click on the Capture button to get the right
coordinate you still have an extra click. With LatLonTools you only need to
click on the map and the coordinate is captured to the clipboard in the
right format for Google Earth.



Copy_Coords

1. Copies the coordinate in the format of "Longitude, Latitude" or in the
native CRS of "X, Y". This is not suitable to paste into Google Earth.

2. Does not support DMS notation.

3. Does not give any indication to the user that the coordinate was
captured.

4. If the CRS is anything other than 4326 the output will not be in degrees.



The major difference with LatLonTools is that it assumes degrees as input
and output no matter what the project CRS is and it formats them in the
order of on-line maps. Here is what LatLonTools offers:



1. Has a single string input of "Latitude, Longitude". Actually, the
delimiter can be one or more comma, space, tab, semicolon, or colon. Note
that with a tab you can paste the coordinates into a spread sheet in
adjacent columns.

2. Supports DMS on input and output.

3. Single click coordinate capture in the proper format for on-line maps.

4. Displays the coordinate in the lower left as the mouse moves over the
map.

5. In settings you can configure the capture format as decimal degrees,
DMS, DDMMSS or even the Native CRS, but will be in the order Y,X or
Latitude, Longitude.

6. In settings you can specify the delimiter between the two coordinates as
a comma, tab, space or anything you want.

7. Two tools in one plugin.

8. I may add an additional capability to paste in a block of coordinates
that create a list to click on and view.

9. Input is in a dockable window which I prefer to a popup window.



For anyone who uses QGIS in conjunction with Google Earth, Google Maps or
the like are really going to appreciate LatLonTools.



My goal was not to duplicate the work flow of the similar plugins, but to
optimize my work flow, but there are several easy modifications that I
could make in the "Settings" so that it could operate in the same manner as
3 of the plugins. I would only do this if the community wanted it, because
I would never work with coordinates the way they do. LatLonTools will only
have a single string as input so if the other plugins want two input text
boxes then there is no overlap. In the "Settings" it would be easy to
support coordinates is in the order of "X, Y" like the other plugins for
those who need that ordering. And in the settings I could also provide an
option for Native CRS input if others were interested.



I know this has been an incredibly long e-mail, but wanted to lay out the
reasons for this plugin and am requesting that you consider adding it to
the plugin repository. The plugin will likely expand with a bulk zoom to
point feature.



Thanks,


Calvin
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