[Xastir] Xastir with offline maps

[Tom Russo]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 09:49:00PM -0400, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <lee.bengston at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
> On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 9:58 PM, Mathew F <n1mjf at n1mjf.com> wrote:
> > I downloaded all 50 states and set them up. Once again it's not the same
> > performance as the OSM-Mapnik map. The Mapnik takes about 20 seconds to
> > load, the RI shapefiles take about 15 minutes to load on the Pi.
> 
> I have Maryland and Virginia, so I tried just selecting Maryland and
> de-selecting the online-mapnick and the map loaded in 27 seconds on an
> Intel Atom based computer (Acer Revo).  Did you have all 50 states
> selected?  I think it will load everything in that case even if you
> are only looking at Rhode Island.

No, that's not what it does.  Every shapefile has a bounds recorded in it,
and Xastir saves an index of those bounds.  It only reads and attempts to 
display a file if the bounds overlap the display.

> Hmm, I don't understand the black background.  I get a grey
> background.  A screenshot is here:
> http://www.175moonlight.com/xastir/xastir-screenshot1-osm-shapefile.png
> The map is definitely not as nice as the mapnik rendering, but it's functional.

I agree --- I use shapefile maps even without base raster layers all the time,
and while they're not beautiful, they are quite functional for a mobile,
emergency service use.  The background color *is* configurable via the 
menu (Map->Configure->Background Color).  I thought it defaulted to grey.  I
often change it to something else depending on the type of shapefile maps
I'm using without a raster base layer.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick