[QGIS-Developer] Question on FGDB support for "Save As" / "Export"

[Andreas Neumann]

Hi Matthias, 

We need to be able to select an existing fgdb-folder (as seen by the OS
it is just a regular folder). 

Currently, QGIS just opens the folder and then expects the user to pick
a file, but currently we can't select a folder without traversing deeper
into it. 

Andreas 

On 2018-07-31 13:58, Matthias Kuhn wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Just a quick question about the file vs. directory problem. Do we need
> to be able to select an existing directory or a new one?
> If it's the latter (new .gdb-folder), we can just use the existing file
> dialog, which will return a path to a file name (but not yet create a
> new file) and we can then have the fgdb driver create a new folder
> instead of a file at this position.
> I might be missing something though.
> 
> Matthias
> 
> On 07/31/2018 12:05 PM, Andreas Neumann wrote: 
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> A Swiss QGIS user asked me if/how FGDB for export/Save as can be
>> supported in QGIS - question specifically about the Windows distribution
>> of QGIS 3.x. Sometimes, QGIS users have to deliver results in fgdb
>> format, because their clients require it.
>> 
>> A quick e-mail exchange with Even Roualt revealed the following:
>> 
>> 1. it is already supported if the proper "gdal-filegdb" packages are
>> installed.
>> 
>> 2. Currently, it can only be enabled in the OSGeo4W version by selecting
>> the "gdal-filegdb" package. The standalone installer does not include
>> this package.
>> 
>> 3. There are issues when wanting to "Save As" an additional layer into
>> an already existing FGDB. The problem is that fgdb files are actually
>> directories. And the current "Save As" dialog does not support selecting
>> "directories" to save into, only files. As a workaround, it works if one
>> copy/pastes the full path from the Windows file explorer into the "Save
>> As" dialog, but not when selecting a directory interactively.
>> 
>> Here is some info on the third issue from Even:
>> 
>> "I don't have the solution on top of my mind. According to
>> http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qfiledialog.html#FileMode-enum it seems that you can
>> setup the selector to select file or directories, but not both.
>> We actually use the QFileDialog::getSaveFileName() API that probably
>> internally resolves to QFileDialog::AnyFile
>> Perhaps a more experience QT dev than me would have an idea.
>> Or an hack (but not sure we can really do better) would be to allow the user
>> to select any file in the .gdb directory, and then automatically strips out
>> the filename to just keep the directory name when we see this a file in in a
>> .gdb directory"
>> 
>> ---------------
>> 
>> So here are my two questions:
>> 
>> About issue 2:
>> 
>> @Jürgen: can you include the necessary gdal-filegdb package also in the
>> standalone installer - or are there license problems?
>> 
>> About issue 3:
>> 
>> Does some dev have an idea or solution on how to more easily select a
>> folder instead of a file, for the case of writing an additional layer
>> into an already existing .fgdb folder?
>> 
>> Thank you all for your ideas and the discussion,
>> 
>> Andreas
>> 
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