[Xastir] readme.maps questions

[Dale Seaburg]

Craig, N6YXK, gave me some hints and help offline with the new 2008  
Tiger/Line shapefiles.  As it turns out, and as Tom and Curt pointed  
out, if the data is in Shapefile format, then no conversion is  
necessary.  Hey, I'm learning as fast as I can...  LOL!

Craig gave me his dbfawk files to try that he had put together for  
the 2007 Tiger/Line data.  I don't have dbfinfo, but do have  
dbfdump.  So, I was able to make a list of fields for each usable  
shapefile from the download from the census website for Texas.  I  
then edited the dbfawk files from Craig - most of them had minor  
field-list changes from 2007 to 2008.  It was at this juncture that  
the light grew brighter and things started to make sense.

Lastly, I changed the layer priority per Craig's instructions in the  
maps_index.sys file (I think that's the name), so the fill coloring  
would be at a lower layer.  The county map I played with came out  
quite nice.  I still would like to enhance with different road colors  
depending on whether they are US, State or County roads.  Also, I  
need to be able to put county boundaries in, so when I add  
surrounding counties I'll see the borders.

I still have a lot to learn.  I am quite rusty with Linux, being so  
windows-centric due to my job (C# and postgresql).  I had to dig out  
my "Linux in a Nutshell" and "Mastering Regular Expressions" and  
brush up.  Talk about a one-night crash course!

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.  I feel like I'm slowly  
getting some traction.

73 - Dale.  KG5LT