[QGIS-Developer] QGIS 3: feedback on Save As Image / PDF

[Nyall Dawson]

On 8 June 2017 at 23:24, Neumann, Andreas <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The new Save as Image / PDF function in the project menu in QGIS 3 is very
> useful! Thanks for developing it!

Full credit goes to Mathieu Pellerin here!

> I have, however, a suggestion for improvement: it would be very useful if
> the user could interactively select an extent in the map canvas. I believe
> such an extent picker widget already exists in the QGIS code base. I think
> it is used in the various places where users have to select an extent, e.g.
> in the gdal raster clipper tool.

Agreed. We have a standard UI widget for entering extents (it's the
one used in the save vector/raster dialogs, with the options for
canvas/layer extent. In 3.0 this gained the possibility to also take
the extent from any other layer too). So adding this feature to the
standard extent widget will automatically give this ability across
many areas in the UI.

Processing's extent selection widget has this. We could probably port
that implementation across to the standard widget, and then remove
processing's custom widget (since all its functionality (and more)
would be present in the standard widget).

> And even more useful would it be if such an interactive selection could be
> restricted to a certain width / height ratio.
>
> Use case: you want to copy map extents for a presentation. You know that you
> export for a 4:3 ratio or 16:9 ratio. Wouldn't it be handy if you could
> interactively choose your extent and restrict it to that ratio? It would
> save us from the extra step, that I would have to open it in Gimp/Photoshop
> and select the extent in there.
>
> Any thoughts?

Great idea! We just need someone to step up and code this :)

Nyall