[Xastir] gpsman shapefile questions

[Tom Russo]

On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 11:24:07AM -0400, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <kevin at kevinratcliff.com> flavor, containing:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Kevin Ratcliff <kevin at kevinratcliff.com> wrote:
> > I've been playing with gpsman (version 6.4) and am getting the message
> > "Unknown file format name: Shapefile_2D" when trying to download a GPS
> > track with Xastir, and Google led me to the above thread. I haven't
> > tested the patch yet, but I'm assuming that's my problem. I'll test it
> > later when I have more time.
> 
> Tested the patch with my Garmin 60CSx. Worked great and I can download
> tracks, though now I have another question:
> 
> The GPS track was downloaded to ~/.xastir/gps/. That's fine, but it
> needs to be in the maps directory to show up in the map chooser,
> right? I solved this problem by creating a symbolic link in
> /usr/local/share/xastir/maps/ to ~/.xastir/gps/, and then each time I
> download a new GPS track I use Map->Configure->Add New Maps. That
> seemed to work, but is that the right way to do it?

Define "right way."  That's the way I do it, for sure.

> I wonder if I'm missing something that's supposed to make this easier
> or more automated. There's a 'GPS' directory in my maps directory, but
> it just contains a placeholder. I'm not sure what that directory is
> good for. Aha...found some info in README.MAPS about this; looks like
> maybe that's where gpsman used to put stuff.

I've got a symlink /usr/local/share/xastir/maps/GPS/russo that points to
my .xastir/gps directory.  If I actually had other uses on the box, that
would allow everyone to work off the same maps dir, but each user the 
ability to load GPS maps as needed.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
 "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."