[Gvsig_english] gvSIG build 1216: BUGS

[Benjamin Ducke]

Dear all,

As discussed before, I am now starting to post my
observations about build 1216 to this list.

This is a list of bugs that I would consider serious. 
Some prevent proper operation, other are just confusing, 
but they all need to be fixed for users to consider 
gvSIG a "serious" alternative to closed source GIS.

More lists with wishes etc. shortly ...

Best,

Ben

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JAVA (1.6) ISSUES

Note: I have tested gvSIG 2 using a Java 1.6 (Update 10) JRE as well.
I think it is important to make sure that gvSIG runs on the latest
version of Java, as it provides much better performance.

BUG: LABELING: Opening the "Labeling" tab in the "Layer properties" always gives an error message: "PluginServices.Error grave de la aplicación.  
 Es conveniente que salgas de la aplicación". On first opening. The same happens in other places (e.g. when switching the "Methods" option under "Classes" or clicking the little "?" in the preview window). [Java 1.6 only]

BUG: LABELING: For polygon and line type layers, the same error message always pops up when clicking on "Placement". The resulting dialog is garbled (the dialog works fine for point layers). [Java 1.6 only]

BUG: LABELING: Specifying a "Label expression" as "[fieldname]" results in a "sun.awt.geom.Curve.crossingsForPath(Ljava/awt/geom/PathIterator;DD)I" error message for each feature to be labelled. [Java 1.6 only]

BUG: LABELING: Switching the "General" option between "Label attributes defined in table" and "User defined labels" switches between table view and map preview. However, this works only once. After the first switch, it gets stuck in the map preview mode. In addition, the "Visualization", "Placement" and "Properties" buttons go dead. [Java 1.6 only]


GENERAL ISSUES

BUG: Without any "gvSIG" folder and user settings present, gvSIG starts up in English by default on my system (an English Gentoo Linux with the LANG env var set). On second startup, gvSIG always starts in Spanish. I then have to go into the "Preferences" menu and set the language to "English" again.

BUG: In the "Add layer" dialog, I can highlight more than one layer, but pressing "Delete" on the highlighted layers will just delete one of them. Also, "Up" and "Down" buttons should be disabled if more than one layer is highlighted, as they only work for one layer at a time.

BUG: If one instance of gvSIG 2 is running, trying to launch another just crashes silently. Maybe it is intentional that only one instance can be running at the same time. But then the user needs at least to be warned.


EDITING

BUG: New "Spline" tool: this creates closed splines in polygon layers just fine, but they display like line objects in editing mode. After saving the layer, however, they get displayed as area objects correctly.

BUG: "Start edition" removes all joined fields from the attribute table. Even if no changes are made and "Finish edition" is called immediately, without saving any changes. If dropping joined fields is really necessary, then the user needs at least to be warned about this before opening the layer in editing mode.


VECTOR LAYERS

BUG: "Selection by Layer" dialog does not show individual layers that are in groups, so it cannot be used with a layer in a group! [ALREADY REPORTED]


TABLES

BUG: Join dialog: the buttons become too small to read after pressing "Next" the first time. This whole procedure really needs a complete redesign and should be put into a new dialog with all options on just one page. Currently, there are too many unncessary clicks on "Next" involved, making the procedure time-consuming.

BUG: Fields that were joined to the attribute table are prefixed "link_" instead of "join_".

BUG: Symbology does not work for joined fields. E.g. select "Categories:Unique values", select a joined attribute field, select "Add all", click on "Apply". Result is an error message:"java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException". Similar erorrs with all others symbology types.

BUG: Linking tables via a common field does not work for me (never has). The links simply do not show up in the attribute table I am trying to link to. Are there any special requirements for the two tables to be linked? Do the field names have to be identical in both tables? Does there have to be an exact 1:1 correspondence of rows in both tables (i.e. do they have to have the same number of rows?).



EXPRESSION CALCULATOR FOR FIELDS

BUG: "Calculate Expression" dialog: the list of "Commands" for Type "String" and "Date" has too much vertical space. It is possible to scroll down way past the last entry, which is confusing.


RASTER LAYERS

BUG: I cannot load any raster layers on Linux (tried several different JREs on two different Linux distros and none worked). I just get an "Error loading layer" message. Works on Windows XP.

BUG: "Area of Interest" tool: the count in the "pixels" column seems to be much too high for areas selected with the "points" and "lines" tools (?).

BUG: "Area of Interest" tool: I can select and save areas but they will not show up in any of the other tools that need them (?).

BUG: Image profiling tool: crashes when trying to profile an 8-Bit greyscale GeoTIFF image (CPU usage goes up to 100% and gvSIG freezes).

BUG: "Analysis View": the "Cursor Zoom" window stays totally blank until the user clicks into the current View window with the currently active tool. The same happens if anything is selected from the context menu of the "Cursor Zoom" window.

BUG: "Select raster layers" tool: before it is used for the first time, this tool will also show vector layers in its drop-down list. The same thing happens if I "Delete" the (only) active raster layer: it will default to the firs vector layer.

BUG: "Select raster layers": When working with different Views, once a raster has been selected in one View, I cannot select areas in a raster in another View with the ROI selection tools (e.g. the "Classification" tool will not allow me to outline classes in the active View, thinking that the raster in the other View is still active). The same problem shows when saving result layers. E.g. the "Vectorisation" tool will sometimes add the result vector layer to the wrong View.

BUG: "Vectorization" tool: "Cancel" button does not work.

BUG: "Vectorization" tool: It is not made sufficiently clear to the user that the result will be saved in a temporary file which could be deleted any time by the operating system after gvSIG is quit! Maybe be better to offer saving to a user-specified Shapefile.

BUG: "Georeferencing" tool: dragging and dropping a point in one of the two view panels sometimes gives an error message:" PluginServices.Error grave de la aplicación. Es conveniente que salgas de la aplicación". After pressing "Accept" on the error message dialog, the point gets placed properly. However, pressing "Test georeferencing" then just results in "java.lang.NullPointerException".

BUG: "Georeferencing" tool: the left view shows the map data. The right view shows just the image to be georeferenced. However: (1) why does the image also get displayed in the left view, where it just blacks the view on the map data? and (2) why are the points placed in the left view called (X/Y) and in the right view (X'/Y') should it not be the other way around?

TOPOLOGY EXTENSION

BUG: Running "evaluar topologia" on the same topology again now results in "Validando topologia" being displayed in the "General" tab. However, nothing has changed with the geometries, they are still overlapping!

BUG: The "Adjacent polygon" and "Split geometry" tools do not work (tested on a Shapefile with polygons): "Terminate" and "Internal Arc" both produce an error on the editor console ("Incorrect option"). Anyway, would it not be more useful to let the user select an overlapping polyon and then cut that so that all overlaps with other objects get removed from it? That way the user can use all the regular editing already available and there is no need to duplicate editing functionality in the Topology extension.


SYMBOLOGY: GENERAL

BUG: The "Symbol selector" is totally empty and comes with no symbols preinstalled. I assume this will change for the final release of gvSIG 2.0. However, it is also impossible to define new symbols. Pressing "New" just seems to modify the same, default symbol. I am not sure I understand how this is supposed to work. Also, I can "Save" a symbol to a file, but how can I load one?

BUG: Saving layers as SLD files works, but loading them into another layer (even if it is just a subset of geometries from the same layer, with identical attributes) just gives the error message: "the_legend_will_not_be_applied:-could_not_find_layer".


SYMBOLOGY: TYPE "Categories->Unique values"

BUG: Attempting to save the legend without adding at least one category first gives a "java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0" error message.


SYMBOLOGY: TYPE "Features->Unique symbols"

BUG: Symbol levels: the settings get lost and reset to defaults every time I press the "Symbol levels" button (this applies for all other places, where symbol levels can be accessed, as well).


SYMBOLOGY: TYPE "Categories->Expressions"

BUG: I have a layer of railroads and each line segment has a floating point attribute "LENGTH". Using the expression "[LENGTH] >=500.0" works, but "[LENGTH] >= 500" does not (pressing "Verify" gives an error)!

BUG: The "Default symbol" option is hard to understand. Apparently, it should allow the user to set a default symbol for all geometries that do not pass any of the filters? If so, then why does no "Default" entry get added to the symbols list when I activate that option?

BUG: Attempting to save the legend without adding at least one filter expression first gives an "com.iver.utiles.NotExistInXMLEntity" error message.


SYMBOLOGY: TYPE "Multiple attribute:Quantity by category"

BUG: Legend saving is not supported (but the button exists).


SYMBOLOGY: TYPE "Quantities:Graduated symbols"

BUG: Attempting to save the legend before doing "Compute intervals" results in a "java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0" error message.


SYMBOLOGY: TYPE "Quantities:Intervals"

BUG: Attempting to save the legend without adding at least one class first gives a "java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0" error message.


LABELING

BUG: Custom label styles: "Placement properties:Change location" brings up a "Label styles" dialog, but the window title is "Symbol selector". Also, why is there an Options panel with "Width" and "Height" settings? It seems to be meaningless in this context? The same problem as with the "Symbol editor" for map symbology: I could not find a way to add custom styles to the library. They would just disappear again after closing the dialog.

BUG: Specifying a "Label expression" as "[fieldname]" has no effect (tested this with a floating point attribute table field). Opening the labelling "Properties" againg shows that the expression field has been cleared.

BUG: I tried the following string for a "Filtered feature": "[flt1] > 60.0" (flt1 is a floating point attribute field with a range of ca. 50.0 to 75.0) but it did not work. Apparently, no features passed the filtering. After switching back to "All features", the broken filter remains in effect and I can never get any labels to display again.

BUG: Mode "User defined labels": I have not been able to get any label classes to work. I click "Add", then double click the new class entry in the list to set its labelling options, but I never see any labels, neither for constant text strings nor attribute fields (same problem as above with specifying field names).

BUG: After switching from "Filtered features" to "All features", then saying "OK", the "Filter" field did not get cleared in the "Classes" list panel.


MAP PRODUCTION

BUG: The Map Window has a tool "Map->Navigation->Panning". However, the corresponding icon in the toolbar has a tooltip text "Zoom Manager". It seems to share the string with "View->Navigation->Zoom Manager".



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