[Xastir] OSM offline

[James Ewen]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 3:17 AM, Thomas Sprinzing <thomas at sprinzing.org> wrote:

> It is just the matter for some knowledgable people to write a decent dbfawk file and put it to work.

You guys should have a look at the map rendering rules that we have in
the editing software. Dbfawk is garbage compared to what we can do
with raw OSM data.

I'm using a program called Merkaartor to edit OSM data on my machine.
It has a number of different style sheets that it can use to display
the information downloaded. There's a style editor that can be used to
edit the rendering rules. It's something that a mere mortal can use
and understand. Using these rules, the raw data ends up on the screen
looking just like the rendered map tiles.

Merkaartor is released under the GNU General Public License. I'm not
up on the legalese, but if that means that perhaps the style sheets
and rendering portions of the project could be used in Xastir 2.0,
that would be a huge plus. I would assume that the map drawing
subsection of Xastir 2.0 could be based on something like this.

Another thing that I find interesting is that Merkaartor is cross
platform compatible. There are versions for Unix, Windows, and Mac...
I don't have to screw with running dual boot, a virtual machine, or
some other goofy setup. I download the binary, install it, and use the
program. If Merkaartor was a Unix only program, I wouldn't be running
it.

If Xastir 2.0 is to ever to come to fruition, this needs to be
something that is seriously considered. I've been following Xastir for
many, many years, but I don't run it anymore. It is just not easy
enough to deal with. If there are other cross-platform applications
out there, why can Xastir not be made in a similar manner?

Yeah, I know it's a free program that people work on as they have
time, but if you're looking to take over the world, you've got to put
enough sugar into the special "Kool-aid" to get everyone to take a
good long drink.

James
VE6SRV