[Xastir] OSM map north-america-latest.osm

[Tom Russo]

On Mon, May 29, 2023 at 12:50:03PM -0600, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <russo at bogodyn.org> flavor, containing:
> > I have been away for a very long time so I am sure this has been asked but
> > I am not finding the answer and I am not 100% sure this is feasible. I did
> > a fresh installation of 2.1.7 on a fresh Ubuntu installation. I have
> > downloaded and extracted north-america-latest.osm from Geofabtrik. I am not
> > seeing how to put it in service. I moved the extracted file to
> > /usr/local/share/xastir/maps/Online but it does not show up in the map
> > list. Am I missing a geo file or is this not supported or practical since
> > it is a huge file?
> > 
> > Normally I try to cache an area I am going to be in ahead of time in case I
> > do not have reliable cell service.
> 
> Xastir doesn't read .osm files directly.  You must process them into 
> shapefiles and provide a suitable ".dbfawk" file to get them rendered properly.

FWIW, Xastir's "config" directory has a couple of ready-made "dbfawk" files
meant to work with OSM shapefiles, but I have no idea how up-to-date they
are: 

OSM_Cloudmade_administrative.dbfawk
OSM_Cloudmade_highway.dbfawk
OSM_Cloudmade_natural.dbfawk
OSM_Cloudmade_poi.dbfawk
OSM_Cloudmade_water_and_coastline.dbfawk
OSM_geofabrik_roads.dbfawk
OSM_geofabrik_waterways.dbfawk

Clearly, more effort was put into getting the "cloudmade" shapefiles rendered
than the geofabrik.  But there was some effort done for the latter.

If you've downloaded a geofabrik shapefile for roads and waterways, Xastir
might just render them properly if you drop them into an appropriate directory
under the maps directory and use the "Map->Configure->Index:Add New Maps"
menu entry.

If those dbfawk files are out of date, however, you might not get them rendered
right.

You can use the "testdbfawk" program to check.  See 
http://xastir.org/index.php/HowTo:DBFAWK and scroll down to where it says 
'It is also possible to use "testdbfawk"...' for instructions on how to use it.
The trick is to tell testdbfawk where Xastir's "config" directory got installed,
and what shapefile you want it to check against.  If it finds a dbfawk file
that matches the shapefile's signature, it'll spew oceans of data about how
it would render the file.  Otherwise it just says "No matching dbfawk signature
found."

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY
Tijeras, NM  

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