[Gvsig_english] Re: setup development environment

Tue Sep 30 12:15:15 CEST 2008

That would be absolutely great!

Thanks much,

Ben

Cesar Martinez Izquierdo wrote:
> Hi Benjamin,
> 
> Thank you very much for elaborating this detailed list of bugs.
> We will try to solve as much of these problems as possible, before 
> releasing version 2.0.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Benjamin Ducke escribió:
>> Hi Jorge,
>>
>>>
>>> You'll need experience with previous versions of gvSIG in order to 
>>> work directly to the SVN. I'm preparing those notes right now.
>>
>> Yes. We will just send in patch files until that level of experience has
>> been gained. Thanks for preparing those notes. They will be very
>> welcome.
>>
>>>
>>> Can you send us a brief summary of those problems you experienced? 
>>> I'm not talking about lacking features but real bugs or inappropriate 
>>> behaviors.
>>
>> All my observations relate to version 1.1.2. I have listed them below.
>> You will see that DBMS and table management is what gives us most
>> problems right now, possibly because we work with fairly extensive
>> external database structures.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>>
>> ===========
>> BUGS
>> ===========
>>
>> * DBMS AND TABLE MANAGEMENT *
>>
>> Information about Database active database connections gets stored as 
>> plain, readable text strings in the XML project file. This includes 
>> the password(!)
>>
>> Case sensitivity: when editing field names in the attribute table, 
>> “NAME” and “name” are treated as though they were the same field name. 
>> Thus, if you want to rename “Label” to “LABEL”, you get an error message.
>>
>> Case sensitivity: in PostGIS connections (and perhaps other places?), 
>> table names are converted to all lower case before comparisons. Thus, 
>> a table named “myTable” cannot be linked to, even though it exists but
>> “mytable” will work. This is not proper behaviour, as SQL is case
>> sensitive.
>>
>> PostGIS: gvSIG cannot connect to tables with geometries created in 
>> QuantumGIS, but it works OK the other way around. There seems to be 
>> something that QGIS tolerates but gvSIG does not.
>>
>> Deleting features based on selected rows in the attribute table: 
>> opening a layer for editing, then using the “Delete row” function in 
>> that layer's attribute table menu seems to not work. Instead, select 
>> the row(s) linked to the features to be deleted. Features will be 
>> selected. Now activate the editing window again and delete all 
>> selected features (DEL key). Small annoyance here: the attribute table 
>> view does not get refreshed properly and it may look as though the 
>> operation failed. Just hit ESC to refresh the view on the currently 
>> selected field.
>>
>> In the "Join" wizards, the buttons after the first step become so 
>> small that their labels cannot be read.
>>
>> "Table -> Link": Dialog box says "Select origin table of the join" 
>> (instead of "link"). Anyway, it should be called the "target" table, 
>> really! Or: "Table to join/link records to"/"Table to join/link 
>> records from".
>>
>> Joining an ODBC table to a table ("external" or attribute) in the 
>> "Table" list works. However, the fields are prefixed "link_" instead 
>> of join. "Table" menu shows "Remove joins" option correctly.
>>
>> Linking an ODBC table to a table in the "Table" list silently fails 
>> (no additional records in the table). However, the "Table" menu shows 
>> "Remove links" option correctly. Perhaps it is a 1:1 only mapping 
>> which requires exactly one record with the same primary key in both 
>> tables? In that case, there should be a proper error message.
>>
>> GvSIG will happily load Shapefiles with missing DBF files. These files 
>> must really be considered broken and troubles will start sooner or 
>> later. Although they show up in the layer list, they will be marked as 
>> faulty, activating them will throw an error “Reload” will not work and 
>> Sextante will crash in any case (as it goes through all layers in the 
>> project checking their types to see which tools should be made 
>> available). It would be better for gvSIG to refuse loading incomplete 
>> Shapefiles altogether.
>>
>> * LAYER MANAGEMENT *
>>
>> After adding groups, saving a project fails with "Fallo guarando el 
>> Proyecto en: com.iver.cit.gvsig.project.documents.table.ProjectTable". 
>> HOWEVER, exiting and then confirming to save the resources saves 
>> everything!
>>
>> Layers that are part of groups cannot be selected individually in the 
>> “Selection by layer” dialog and perhaps in other places, as well. Bug 
>> or feature?
>>
>> Layer styles cannot be saved and loaded into a new layer, if it has 
>> the exact same attributes. This is a known bug that will be fixed in 
>> gvSIG 2.0 (it appears to work after a restart of gvSIG, though).
>>
>> Sometimes, a layer will disappear when selecting records in the 
>> associated attribute table. Select “Reload” from the layer context 
>> menu to restore it. However, sometimes that does not work either. The 
>> problem is frequent with layers that have external table data joined 
>> in. It gets when restoring a project with such layers in it.
>>
>> Symbols: choosing different "Begin" and "End" colors does not result 
>> in any changes until "Computer intervals" is pressed.
>>
>> * GEOPROCESSING TOOLS *
>>
>> Merging layers with integer attributes results in the merged attribute 
>> being of type double (??).
>>
>> Creating more than one buffer zone using the “Buffer” geoprocess does 
>> not work. You get only one buffer that is the size of all the buffers 
>> requested plus some spurious geometries.
>>
>> * GEOMETRY EDITING *
>>
>> "Finish edition" always asks about saving changes to tables and 
>> shapes, even if none were made.
>>
>> Stepping through the editing command console history using CURSOR 
>> UP/DOWN gives: “java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String 
>> index out of range: 2993”.
>>
>> * ANNOTATION LAYERS *
>>
>> GvSIG thrashes the disk when cancelling the annotation dialog.
>>
>> Attempting to open the “Properties” of an annotation layers results in 
>> the following error message: “java.lang.ClassCastException: 
>> com.iver.cit.gvsig.fmap.rendering.Annotation_Legend cannot be cast to 
>> com.iver.cit.gvsig.fmap.rendering.SingleSymbolLegend”
>>
>> Many problems with current labelling functions. Fonts changing size 
>> when rotation applied. Annotation layers not printing or being 
>> exported to PDF ...
>>
>> Attribute tables of annotation layers: cannot query or sort by any 
>> field if added to the Table view by using the "Show table of 
>> attributes" function, but if added as an external dbf table, all is OK!
>>
>> * EVENT LAYERS *
>>
>> In the “Add event layer” dialog, the input fields for northing and 
>> easting are both labelled “null”. Sometimes they do get displayed, but 
>> in the wrong order: “X:” is really the Northing, “Y:” the field for 
>> the Easting!
>>
>> * PROJECTIONS *
>>
>> Projection definition for ESRI:54004 does not work.
>>
>> * USER INTERFACE ANNOYANCES *
>>
>> Some dialogs are not resizable, which is bad because there is too much 
>> information to fit into them (e.g. the list view in the dialog for 
>> choosing a projection system.
>>
>> When detaching a group of icons from the main toolbar, it is 
>> impossible to drop them back off anywhere but at the right-most 
>> position in the toolbar. However, after a program restart, everything 
>> get reset to defaults, anyway.
>>
>> Since the link and join functions are only accessible when activating 
>> a table, they should be executed by default on the currently active 
>> table. A single dialog would then be much simpler then the current 
>> wizard interfaces.
>>
>> There are no useful error messages in the case when an ODBC connection 
>> fails.
>>
>> It seems strange that layers in a View cannot directly be added to the 
>> locator map.
>>
>> Grouping layers would be easier if it was possible to select 
>> non-adjacent layers using CTRL + left click
>>
>> Layers cannot always be moved to the place wanted, because the layer 
>> list does not autoscroll during drag operations. There is no good 
>> visual indication (like a horizontal line) to show where a layer that 
>> is being dragged will end up. Worse: if all layers are part of a 
>> group, there is
>> no possibility to drag a layer to the outside of any group. The only
>> work around is to add another layer to the layer list, thus creating
>> a "drop target".
>>
>> When creating a new group, the default name should be marked for 
>> overwrite, so the user does not have to delete it every time before 
>> entering a new name.
>>
>> Editing commmands: the tool names are too long! There need to be 
>> abbreviations, like "rect" instead of "rectangle" (or even just "R"), 
>> otherwise the user will wast too much time.
>>
>> Editing mode has its own selection tools, but the other selection 
>> tools are still available, which can be confusing at times.
>>
>> There should be a warning if the user edits a shapefile layer that has 
>> a different SRS then the current view.
>>
>> * MAP LAYOUT AND PRINTING *
>>
>> Map layout and printing have been reported as being broken by many of
>> our users. I have not yet the time to make a detailed list of all
>> problems encountered, or check whether they are really user errors, but
>> they include:
>>
>> - unable to set line thickness < 1.0
>> - wrong margins
>> - unfilled polygons come out filled anyway on print-outs
>> - problems with font scaling in scale bar display
>> - contents of locator map not aligned properly to its graphic frame
>> - wrong margins
>>
>>
> 
> 

-- 
Benjamin Ducke
Senior Applications Support and Development Officer

Oxford Archaeology Ltd
Janus House
Osney Mead
OX2 0ES
Oxford, U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)1865 263 800 (switchboard)
Tel: +44 (0)1865 980 758 (direct)
Fax :+44 (0)1865 793 496
benjamin.ducke at oxfordarch.co.uk

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