[Qgis-user] Processing - Duplicate tools for reprojecting

Wed Apr 5 12:27:55 PDT 2017

Hello and thanks for your comments. Sorry to not have followed up on
previous replies from Paulo.

I agree that we all need to sending bug reports and assist with
documentation but this can be hugely time-consuming.

A good example might be a problem I had with CAD digitizing tool some time
ago. I could not figure out how to make them work and the documentation was
skimpy or missing.

I did attempt to follow through with more detail but spent an inordinate
amount of time just figuring out which tool was which. In the end there
were at least two tools with the same name but different functions and a
third one with functions that seem to overlap some in the other two. I
finally gave up trying to unravel all the relationships and missing pieces.
This is unfortunate as the problem never gets resolved.  I often don't even
know the name of the tool I am using or how to look up help for it.

I was only attempting to create perpendicular and parallel lines but got
unpredictable results or none at all. In my CAD program this was all
acheived in mere seconds with a completely predictable outcome.

The processing toolbox items seem to be better organized and documented
although they frequently report missing documentation as well. There is
also huge duplication there too.

Except for very basic functions, I find that hunting for specialized tools,
figuring out how they work , troubleshooting the functions and lack of
documentation leads me to just give up and turn to other programs that I
know will work right away.

I suppose that crowd building a GIS is mostly successful but seems to
suffer from an overall lack of coordination which creates a product which
doesn't seem to be cohesive.

Although not free, Manifold GIS is immensely powerful and well-documented
to a fault although there are some deficiencies there as well.  I think
Manifold is now only a few hundred dollars with several very inexpensive
add-ons available.

Now I see increasing numbers of posts regarding installation and other
major functionality problems. Not sure if I would choose qgis again
although parts of it are really brilliant the cartographic output is very
good.

Sorry to not be more helpful but I don't see a quick fix here ...

Cheers . . . . .   Springfield Harrison
Samsung Tab 4
On Apr 5, 2017 11:45 AM, "DelazJ" <delazj at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 2017-03-28 20:43 GMT+02:00 Springfield Harrison <stellargps at gmail.com>:
> >
> > I agree. I am all in favour of choice, but less so for duplication.
> >
> > I would prefer one well design, well-documented tool rather than umpteen
> choices, Each of which I have to try out and evaluate.
> >
> > I find that many of the tools are poorly documented , don't work
> intuitively or don't work at all. More and more I am turning back to
> Manifold GIS or my CAD program to accomplish things that should be easy to
> do inside QGIS.
>
> Yes, I agree with you that there's room for improvement in algorithms'
> documentation. A QGIS grant proposal has been made in this sense and if
> it's accepted, some of your issues Will be fixed. However, note that QGIS
> team is still looking for people willing to help on documenting processing
> tools or globally said, QGIS manuals. If each of us takes few minutes to
> document only one of the tools or features we know very well, at some point
> QGIS Documentation will quickly be well and fully featured. It simply needs
> me, you and you... to help us provide the best experience.
>
> About buggy or not working algorithms, there's:
> - a place to report issues (see http://qgis.org/en/site/
> getinvolved/development/bugreporting.html ) and people are encouraged to
> use it, otherwise developers are not aware of bugs and an unknown bug has
> few chance to be fixed;
> - an infrastructure to test algorithms and anyone can help to test them
> and stregthen the tools. No developer skill is required as far as I can
> tell. Some information at http://www.opengis.ch/2016/02/
> 04/increasing-the-stability-of-processing-algorithms/ (i thought there
> was a more recent article but couldn't find it).
>
> Hope that helps and looking forward for new writers or testers,
> Harrissou
>
> >
> > The open-source concept does have its strengths but coherence is not one
> of them. Too often the result is more like a camel rather than a horse ...
> >
> > Cheers . . . . .   Spring
> > Samsung Tab 4
> >
> > On Mar 28, 2017 4:00 AM, "johnrobot" <johnrobot at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi
> >> I do not want disable to all of the packages (GRASS etc), but I think
> that
> >> it would improve the user experience if there are not as many as 13
> tools
> >> for buffering. We should be able to reduce this and I noticed that
> there are
> >> similar thoughts here,
> >> https://hub.qgis.org/wiki/quantum-gis/Google_Summer_of_Code_2017.
> >>
> >> Magns
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> View this message in context: http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.
> nabble.com/Processing-Duplicate-tools-for-reprojecting-
> tp5312941p5314612.html
> >> Sent from the QGIS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >> _______________________________________________
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