[QGIS-Developer] Docs/Instructions for Filter/Query Builder

Richard Duivenvoorde rdmailings at duif.net
Sat Oct 23 05:02:11 PDT 2021


Hi,

I've just been asked by some average QGIS user (unknown to SQL queries) how to create a simple filter like cityname='foo' for a vector layer.

That was almost impossible for that person, unaware of SQL...
We could not find any part of documentation for the SQL Query Builder dialog, and we also couldn't find the old (more user oriented) 'query builder' anymore (which does have documentation).

So my question is: while for SQL guru's and very advanced users the SQL Query Builder probably is a valuable feature, I think for average users the new builder is, well pretty hard/impossible ... 
Off course we do not have one target-user, but in general I think QGIS get's more and more functions, but also get's more and more complex to use.

Would be great if we could still help the non-tech/average user. In this specific case maybe with a 'simple'-part of the dialog (which only accepts the where clause and where there is a 'test'-button like in the old dialog?
OR at least you would end up with some documentation about the filter if you click the Help button on that dialog?

I do understand that it is cool to have the SQL Query builder, but I fear that we are loosing some part of our user base if we ask them to be aware of SQL constructs, just to filter out some Features based on a field....

Opinions?

Regards,

Richard Duivenvoorde


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