[Xastir] A success report and an inquiry

[Tom Russo]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 04:55:02PM -0500, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <jdw at eng.uah.edu> flavor, containing:
> 
>  On Jul 6, 2007, at 4:10 PM, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> 
> > Or create new GNIS files somehow?
> 
> 
>  Well, you're one of the developers, so you tell me if it makes more sense 
>  to:
> 
>  - create new GNIS files in the old format with new data (assuming that's 
>  possible)

The new data is missing important information like the estimated population
of populated places.  That information is used by Xastir to choose when to
display city/town/village names.  Without it, we're stuck displaying everything.

>  - re-code so that xastir understands the new GNIS format

That wouldn't be too hard, except for the missing information that is needed
by xastir.

>  - convert the GNIS files to shapefiles, and abandon the GNIS support built 
>  into xastir
> 
> 
>  That last one makes a certain amount of sense to me (a non-developer) since 
>  shapelib support has been integrated with the standard distribution.
> 
>  I can't even remember now what the problem with the GNIS files were; the 
>  format changed, but did it change so that they are no longer useful?

The latter.  Without knowing the population of populated places, our code
to pick and choose which to display at what zoom level is broken.

We could, of course, change how to make those choices, but as it is the newest
GNIS data is missing a lot of stuff we relied on in the past.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick