[Xastir] Shapefile question/help

[Tom Russo]

On Sun, Mar 03, 2013 at 06:34:23AM +1100, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <edodd at billiau.net> flavor, containing:
> Jacob Tennant wrote:
> > I have my MacOS based Xastir system running nicely now on the shape file
> > maps but have one annoying problem/question.
> >
> > When the maps load I get a large amount of little red X's all over the
> > screen.

This is the default rendering of point shapefiles that have no associated
dbfawk file.

If you don't want those Xs, disable the map that they belong to.  Look for
warnings about missing DBFAWK files on the console output (run Xastir from
the command line, not from a desktop shortcut), and deselect them from the
map chooser.    The message is something similar to "no matching DBFAWK 
signature found, using default".

If you want the data that is associated with the maps that are displaying
as default, then you need to get a dbfawk file for them so they render in a 
more interesting way, and are pruned based on zoom level.

You can also tell the map properties for a map that it should only display
between a min and max zoom level.  If you have point shapefiles that are
useless zoomed far out, and you don't have a dbfawk file that shuts off
display at high zoom levels, you can use this feature.  It will also speed up
map rendering, because the entire file will be skipped outside of that zoom
range.

Shapefile support in Xastir is pretty cool, but is coolest and most useful only
for maps that have an associated dbfawk file.  The default rendering without
dbfawk is ugly and next to useless (default is solid, unlabled black lines for
polyline shapefiles, and red, unlabeled Xs for point shapefiles).

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
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