[Gvsig_english] GvSIG and Joins

[Benjamin Ducke]

Dear all,

It seems to me that gvSIG's Join functionality is 
the weakest point of the current 1.9 code base. 
There has been a lot of work on this recently and 
things have been changing quickly from one build to
the next.

In my opinion, the Join function must currently 
(build 1244) be considered broken, for the following 
reasons:

1. All joined fields are prefixed "link_" (why not "join_"?).
As Wolfgang remarks, this leads to mutilated attribute field
names on shapefile export.

2. There is currently nothing that can be done in gvSIG 
with joined data that could not be done better directly 
in the database. The only things that are GIS-specific, 
the thematic mapping (symbology) and labeling, have been 
disabled  for joined fields in recent builds.

I think it would be an absolute pity to spoil such a great 
software and all the progress that has been made in other 
areas by shipping 1.9 with a broken Join function.
I would not hesitate to recommend 1.9 for any purpose
at the moment, except joining and mapping data from
external databases -- too bad, really.

Would it be possible to clean up the most important problems 
with Join before the 1.9 release? 
And restore the symbology and labeling stuff?

On a related topic: Could the "Link" tool be changed to 
use the same dialog  as the new"Join" tool, please? 
The one it now has is old and buggy.

Cheers,

Ben


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