[Xastir] YAFRODU

[Dan Brown]

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005, Curt Mills wrote:

> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005, Dan Brown wrote:
> 
> > A "zoom to map showing all known stations" feature?
> 
> Never thought of that.  I'm not sure how useful that'd be.
> Thoughts?

I was trying to find a zoom today that would display all, and never got
there, fwiw.  I'll play with it a bit tomorrow to see if I can give better
feedback.  I may be mis-interpreting the numbers in the status bar. 

> > And, yet another...  some prescribed/configurable method for eliminating or
> > deselecting details from tiger maps as you go to higher zooms, again to
> > prevent timeouts?  Perhaps have a "max zoom level to display XYZ feature"
> > for each of the tigermap features? 
> 
> I get the idea that you use Tigermaps a lot.  ;-)

I do.  They're convenient, they're pretty point and shoot, and while they
may not be quite as precise or accurate as some sources out there, they do
"just work" for most instances.


The biggest thing I found hard about xastir, when I was getting started -
and I frankly feel fairly comfortable with unix, X windows, etc (it is how
I've made a living most of my adult life) - was that it took me several
tries to get the right incantations (right zoom level, long enough timeout,
few enough details displayed, right libraries compiled in, etc) to be able
to get a map - ANY map - to display. 

First impressions are the ones that stick.  And so - my suggestion - make
it easy to get a map (it doesn't have to be "the best" map) up on the first
try, and maybe the second try too.  Maybe default to a "512" zoom, centered
on the owners station, downloaded from Tiger if they have a 'net
connection, and default to some publicly available outline of the world
otherwise.  Or, something.  One script I've been mulling is a step by step
config script for first time users - get the call sign, get the location -
if they don't have a lat/long, get a street addr, download the GNIS and
fudge things based on that, etc.  Dunno - maybe I'm overthinking,
underestimating the community? 


> How about switching to local Shapefile maps created from Tiger data,
> so you don't have to go through all these hassles?  That's what I
> do.

I think this is fine (and is the way I'm heading) for people who've been
mucking here for a while.  For people just getting started, it may not be
ideal, and, I guess that was the overall point of my posts today - how can
things be made "easy" for people getting started, who don't RTFM, or RTFM
and get MEGO'd by the the 15th step. 

? 

Dan.