[Xastir] Potential new "default" offline map in the works

[Tom Russo]

Since my attempt to get early feedback on the map set by providing
a tarball was a disaster (bad instructions, poorly constructed tarball,
and who knows what else), we have just gone ahead and pushed the new map
and initial map selection process to github on the master branch.

If you track the bleeding edge of Xastir code, it's there now.

The maps are installed in ${xastir's install prefix}/share/xastir/maps/NaturalEarth 
by "make install".

A brand new user, if running a version of Xastir with shapefile support,
will get their brand new config directory populated such that the new maps
just magically show up.

If they don't have shapefile support compiled in, they get the same old map
we have had since 2006.

This has no impact on existing users with active .xastir/config directories
in their home directory, other than providing a new map option they can
choose themselves from the map chooser.

There may be tweaks required to the dbfawks between now and the next release,
but please check out the new included maps and see how they look to you.

These are not intended to be detailed maps.  They are the bare minimum
map to get something interesting to look at the first time you open Xastir,
and for that something to be a bit closer to this century's world borders.

On Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 12:44:33PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <russo at bogodyn.org> flavor, containing:
> It has been pointed out that when Xastir is started for the very first time
> ever, it selects the 'worldhi.map' file as the default map.
> 
> This map is so old it shows the USSR, East Germany, and Yugoslavia borders.
> 
> This map was chosen because it is in a format that the absolute minimum 
> build of Xastir can display, if no other map formats are supported.
> 
> https://github.com/Xastir/Xastir/issues/152
> 
> A long time ago a good set of shapefiles was identified that might serve
> as a better default view, but during investigation of those shapefiles we
> found a number of bugs in Xastir that were show-stoppers, and there was
> nobody with time to fix those bugs.
> 
> Those bugs have been fixed in the last week or two, and it's time to consider
> the new maps as defaults.  New features have been added to Xastir to make
> these new maps render as nicely as possible.
> 
> The plan is that when Xastir starts up for the very first time, if the 
> build supports shapefiles we'll default to these shapefiles as the map you
> get selected.  Only if you're firing up a bare-minimum build of Xastir for 
> the first run will you get the bare-minimum quality map.  Since package 
> managers aren't packaging bare-minimum builds, perhaps very few folks will 
> be stuck with a crude late-1980s vintage world map.
> 
> Please feel free to check out the proposed new default map set by downloading
> the data and building the latest Xastir.
> 
> Please see this comment: https://github.com/Xastir/Xastir/issues/152#issuecommen
> t-3643187939
> for how you can download the (2MB) tarball of the proposed new maps and their
> rendering rule DBFAWK files, and see if you like the look.
> 
> If you don't want to download the data to view it, there are some screen shots
> on the issue report.
> 
> -- 
> Tom Russo    KM5VY
> Tijeras, NM  
> 
>  echo "prpv_a'rfg_cnf_har_cvcr" | sed -e 's/_/ /g' | tr [a-m][n-z] [n-z][a-m]
> 
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-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY
Tijeras, NM  

 echo "prpv_a'rfg_cnf_har_cvcr" | sed -e 's/_/ /g' | tr [a-m][n-z] [n-z][a-m]