[Xastir] couple quick q's

[Jack Twilley]

WARNING: Unsanitized content follows.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

>>>>> "Curt" == Curt Mills <Curt> writes:

N1OFZ> When Xastir creates the maps initially for display a gif gets
N1OFZ> created in /var/tmp called xastir_dr_map.gif.  How is this
N1OFZ> image different than turning off all the stations and turning
N1OFZ> on snapshots?  Other than the snapshot images is a png?  Is
N1OFZ> there a reason the png would be better?

Curt> Yea, it's royalty-free, unlike GIF's.  There's been a bit of a
Curt> revolt against GIF's for any use in open-source software, 'cuz
Curt> the owner of the patent (LZW compression?) started going after
Curt> programs that created GIF's, and perhaps ones that display them,
Curt> with legal documents requesting large licensing fees.

This will eventually become a non-issue when the patent expires, but
PNGs are also technically superior to GIFs and are just as widely
supported these days.

Curt> The images you're seeing in /var/tmp are only used for the
Curt> on-line services, and are the destinations for the libcurl or
Curt> wget calls.  For maps you have on disk already, we don't go
Curt> through that step.

And those images in /var/tmp will be going away as soon as I rewrite
that code to draw the files directly into memory instead of writing to
disk first.  This is a post-release fix.

N1OFZ> Just curious as to what you are considering for the backend?
N1OFZ> Mysql, Postgresql, something else?  This would be great and I'd
N1OFZ> love to help out to the best of my ability.  I have some
N1OFZ> experience with mysql/postgres.  I also have 2 guys on my staff
N1OFZ> that are Postgres gurus and I can leverage them a little if
N1OFZ> necessary.

Curt> PostgreSQL at first.  We'd probably like to have a database
Curt> independent layer so that Oracle Spatial or even local DBM files
Curt> might be placed there as well.  Some people won't have the
Curt> need/desire to have an SQL database running just to do APRS
Curt> stuff.  Some will.

Once GDAL support is in place, xastir can directly support both
PostgreSQL and Oracle Spatial.  http://remotesensing.org/gdal/ for
more information.

Jack.
- -- 
Jack Twilley
jmt at twilley dot org
http colon slash slash www dot twilley dot org slash tilde jmt slash
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (FreeBSD)

iD8DBQE+sszVGPFSfAB/ezgRArMoAKDO3+4o+HTWq+Gr9mdjgvYNM0j1OgCfTz72
4qE2YgqdiJk2dVDFxi7WHaM=
=0kFk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----