[Xastir] OpenStreetMaps Update

[Jerry Dunmire]

Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll think about changing the file name,
but I don't want to do that too many times because of the disruption
it causes.

As for the file extensions, all I can say at this point is that xastir
uses the file extension as part of it's internal logic. This isn't a
OS level choice, but part of the core logic of this particular
application. The clearest way to make the decision to about when
scaling should be binned or linear was by creating another 'file type'
(as defined by file extension). Any other way would have caused me to
add new code to parse file contents at places were the file contents
are not presently available. I'm sure this is part of why I'm being
encouraged to change to the linear scaling as soon as possible. If the
linear scaling works acceptably then OpenStreetMap.geo (no 's' - I'm
trying :-) ) will come back as the way to select the linear scaling
for OSM. At that point the .osm extension could be dropped if the
binned scaling is no longer desirable. I would like to hold off that
decision until I see the linear scaling in-action on OSM bitmaps.

I am actually thinking about how to select the other map styles. I'm
not quite sure how yet, but probably by different key words in the
.osm/.geo file. A separate file (by no new extensions!) would used for
each style. That way no new selection process/GUI would need to be
added. However this feature is still a thought experiment...

73,
...jerry

On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 11:29 PM, Andrew Errington
<a.errington at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, June 11, 2010 14:03, Jerry Dunmire wrote:
>> I hadn't noticed the extension collision. I was looking only at the
>> Xastir use. Do you have any suggestions for a more appropriate
>> extension?
>
> Not really.  I don't really know what you would classify the contents of
> the file as.  The .geo files are genuine .geo files, and other files which
> contain data in a well-known format should use the well-known extension.
>
> Since this is a Unix-like system there's no need for extensions anyway, or
> you could use the catch-all ".dat".
>
> Either way, I encourage you to drop the 's' as OSM itself is not plural.
> (Pedantic programmer is pedantic).
>
> Since these are still early days, have you considered how to get the other
> rendered tiles (assuming they are available)?  For example (for those
> who've never played with OSM) you can click on a plus symbol (+) at the
> upper right hand side of the map at the OSM site (www.osm.org) and switch
> to different rendered views of the data.  The default at OSM is Mapnik.
> The tiles we are viewing in Xastir seem to be Osmarender.  The third one
> you can see is CycleMap, which includes (approximate) topo lines.
>
> If we have generic WMS support we should be able to specify any WMS server
> and it should Just Work.
>
> 73,
>
> A
>
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