[Xastir] 2008 Tiger Map edge.dbfawk

[Dale Seaburg]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 12:27:59PM -0500, Tom Russo wrote:

> I don't think it's in tabblock I think it's in featnames. I went into
> both and made the featnames look the same as in edges, still have the
> same exact behavior as before.
>

No, I believe you're mistaken there.  "featnames" is in fact not a  
shapefile.
It's just a DBF file that is completely useless for Xastir's  
purposes.  You
should not bother downloading tl*featnames.zip, and might as well  
remove all
the tl*featnames.* files.


> I'm clearly doing something wrong.
>

Take my advice:  turn off *all* maps except the edges shapefile.   
Then go to
work on your edges.dbfawk file.  When you have it working the way you  
like,
then systematically turn on shapefiles one by one.  At some point you'll
suddenly see a change to behavior you don't want --- that shapefile  
is the
problem, and you'll have to change its dbfawk, too.

tabblock and edges both have features representing the same lines, and I
believe they have different MTFCC values for those features.  So making
tabblock and edges have the same rules won't help.  You'll either  
want to
disable tabblock or edit its rules to get the right behavior.

---------------------------

Tom, you are so right-on.  I just experimented with edges first, and  
saw the desired effect that Keith *and* I want.  The county roads (in  
my case) disappear as expected.  With Tabblock selected, some, but  
not all of them appear.  I agree after reading the "2008 TIGER/Line  
Shapefiles" docs about the "Current Block County-based  
Shapefile" (tabblock) - see page 34.  We *don't* need it!  It is the  
outline of each census tabulation block, which coincidentally  
parallels the map's roads especially in rural areas.

Thanks again, for pointing the way.  Also, kudos to Curt with Automap  
turn-off.  I keep forgetting to do that.

73 - Dale.  KG5LT