IRC Logs October 9th

jgarnett: morning
jgarnett: I belive jesse is on holiday this week
jgarnett: I sent an email reminder out a few minuets ago
mauricio: hello
jgarnett: along with some agenda topics
jgarnett has changed the topic to: 0) what is up 1) 1.1.0 2) trunk 3) build
jgarnett: mauricio do you have anything for the agenda?
mauricio: presicion tools
jgarnett: I would love to have an update from FOSS4G; but it seems they are all still sleeping.
jgarnett has changed the topic to: 0) what is up 1) 1.1.0 2) trunk 3) build 4) presicion tools
jgarnett: emily_g ?
emily_g: good morning
jgarnett: right.
jgarnett: okay let us move ...
jgarnett: 0) what is up
jgarnett: jgarnett - I am rather fried; I have been trying to do small tasks like clean up catalog interfaces and remove test cases from our plugins.
emily_g: I've integrated the tiled rendering system. It can be used by setting the preference in the rendering preference page
jgarnett: what have you guys been up to?
mauricio: Paralell tools and release es.axios.extensionsrc9
mauricio: parallels
emily_g: jgarnett - I wanted to talk about Map Blackboard serialization but if jesse is away maybe I should wait until next week?
mauricio: there is any news about 1.1
mauricio: any posible date ?
jgarnett: Jesse finished it
jgarnett: and uploaded it here (and told me I could anounce it)
mauricio: good
jgarnett: http://udig.refractions.net/files/downloads/uDig11/
jgarnett: but as you can see the upload failed 1/2 way
jgarnett: so we need him to upload again.
mauricio: ok
jgarnett: The other thing we could do; since the 1.1.0 "tag" seems finished; is to juggle svn around so 1.1.x has all the changes made to the 1.1.0 tag.
jgarnett: it may be quickest just to "copy" 1.1.0 to 1.1.x - and then update all the version numbers again.
jgarnett: I have reports of some layer refresh problems interrupting a customers RCP app.
jgarnett: So we may need a developer to dive in there and apply some fixes sometime this month.
jgarnett: If that is the case I would expect a 1.1.1 at the end of the month.
jgarnett: I assume we would do "dot" releases every month as long as teams are working against the 1.1.x series.
jgarnett: mauricio you have teams working on 1.1.x right?
mauricio: yes
mauricio: the last versions of our plugins are in 1.1.x
jgarnett: Refractions has one project working against 1.1.x right now; but that is our only exposure.
jgarnett: 1.1.x is realy going to lean on you and your team; for monthly releases etc.
jgarnett: (even right now I am explaining to Ugo Taddei that I have no developers available to make him an SDK release of trunk)
jgarnett: shall we move on?
jgarnett: 2) trunk
jgarnett: It feels as if a lot is happening ... with relatively little communication.
jgarnett: I cannot always keep track of what the developers on the udig-devel list are working on.
emily_g: what would you like to see?
jgarnett: mauricio you are pretty clear what we are up to on trunk on this end?
mauricio: actualy no
jgarnett: emily_g I think we have been okay with communication; I am not always sure what the developers on the email list (like Jurgen Jacob or Ugo Taddei) are doing.
jgarnett: we are making the uDig rendering system "fast"
jgarnett: that is we are burning memory (and now disk) to make the rendering experience better.
jgarnett: Graham davis has implemented a client for WMSC (ie GeoWebCache or TileServer)
jgarnett: and that can be used as a fast alternative to WMS
emily_g: can we send an email to the list and ask people who are working on trunk to summarize what they've been doing?
jgarnett: just this week Graham started making use of local disk to cache tiles.
jgarnett: emily_g - that is a good idea.
jgarnett: emily_g do you want to describe what you are doing?
emily_g: I've been doing the tiled rendering stuff - rendering data in tiles
emily_g: and saving these tiles so when you pan around you don't have to rerender them
jgarnett: so as you pan around it is smooth; no flashes of "white" as with the current system you are used to on uDig 1.1.0
emily_g: next I"m looking into trying to make the panning smoother
jgarnett: we have a couple problems left:
jgarnett: - mapgraphics need to smarten up about the fact there are tiles
jgarnett: - not sure what else/
emily_g: mapgraphics is the main issue I know about at the moment
jgarnett: I am trying to do a bit of technical debt; the catalog api for example; and cleaning up factories that are not used.
jgarnett: mauricio have you tried out trunk very much?
mauricio: we compile with trunk 1 month ago
mauricio: and we test udig
mauricio: but when you began with the refactoring
mauricio: I prefered to wait
jgarnett: the refactoring?
mauricio: yes
jgarnett: the rendering stuff does not change any api
mauricio: project
mauricio: rendering
mauricio: etc
emily_g: we changed the render metrics api
emily_g: a while ago
emily_g: and made a few other changes to some of the apis to get the tiled stuff going
jgarnett: right - I had forgotten. It is now closer to the uDig 0.9 origional.
jgarnett: emily_g how much of that will effect people; should we maintain an update guide?
jgarnett: (the main difference for me is geotools)
emily_g: the rendering metrics changed quite a bit
emily_g: the other stuff probably doesn't matter
emily_g: I think we have a wiki page describing the update
mauricio: that could be good
mauricio: some times i am not sure
mauricio: about if is convenient invest effort to compile with trunk
jgarnett: well I cannot do too much to encourage you
jgarnett: short of deleting 1.1.x :-P
jgarnett: but when you are ready; trunk will be an improved experience.
mauricio: :)
mauricio: ok
jgarnett: 3 build
jgarnett: It sounds like Jesse is all for moving to Eclipse 3.4.1
jgarnett: and Ugo already made the transition and did not talk to us about it ...
jgarnett: ... so what is involved? Making another "Extras"?
jgarnett: It sounds like uDig ran into some trouble with the "nls" plugins we included with extras - I am not sure what to do about that.
jgarnett: I would like to ask Moovida since he made them.
jgarnett: Emily do you think we could check with our customer about upgrading? And then get back to the list ...
emily_g: we can definitely ask
lotu [n=lotu@c-98-218-10-165.hsd1.md.comcast.net] entered the room.
jgarnett: there are some questions about headless build; and a rant about scala
lotu: yes there are
lotu is now known as hbullen2
jgarnett: not sure I care to comment much. We lack anyone to try headless builds; or making an SDK release.
jgarnett: welcome :-) You caught the tail end of the meeting...
jgarnett: we are still on the subject of "build"
hbullen2: yes I get up too late
jgarnett: np. Most of your questions are for Jesse.
hbullen2: k
jgarnett: I just wanted to be clear that I was not being rude to you on this subject; I simply do not know the answers - having not tried headless build myself.
hbullen2: oh I guess that is understandable
hbullen2: I actually got one working late yesterday
hbullen2: I had to edit one of the scala files though to get a single file
jgarnett: interesting
jgarnett: what platform are you on?
jgarnett: (or what was the edit; I was wondering why Jesse did not encounter the problem you were seeing)
jgarnett: also: if I could ask a favour - would it be possible for you to upload an SDK based on trunk? Even just at the end of each month?
hbullen2: I was on linux, and the SDK has run on both windows and linux so far.
hbullen2: Sure where would be a good place to put it?
jgarnett: the udig "files/downloads" directory
jgarnett: it is a webdav folder and your svn credentials should work.
jgarnett: http://udig.refractions.net/files/downloads/
hbullen2: okay that works for me
jgarnett: and if you can kindly just put the file in the list; jesse keeps hiding things in folders (so they do not appear on the website). I want them to appear on the website :-)
jgarnett: (it is important to release early and release often)
jgarnett: that would be *so* cool.
hbullen2: by list you mean the ???
dassouki [n=a_d@fctnnbsc15w-156034067001.nb.aliant.net] entered the room.
dassouki: jgarnett: a small postgis question if u have time :D
hbullen2: go for it jgarnett I have some calls to make
jgarnett: let us do our last agenda topic
jgarnett: and then postgis question?
jgarnett: 4) precision tools
jgarnett: mauricio this one is yours.
mauricio: ok
dassouki: sounds good :D
mauricio: well
jgarnett: Are you referring to changing the JTS percision settings?
mauricio: it is abou
mauricio: t
mauricio: the interactions
mauricio: required for tools
mauricio: to add presicion when you are drawing
mauricio: now you can use the tools to do sketch
mauricio: but our users are asking
mauricio: "how can introduce coord, length, etc"
mauricio: have you some similar requirement
mauricio: ?
jgarnett: I am trying to understand
jgarnett: coord, length etc?
mauricio: :)
jgarnett: what do you mean?
jgarnett: perhaps if you could tell me a story; what the user would do and click.
mauricio: ok
jgarnett: are you thinking of how to type that up now? Or should we take this to email...
mauricio: how can a user draw a linestring in a precision position of word
jgarnett: one again I am not sure
jgarnett: in my experience people do not draw very often
jgarnett: sometimes they "trace" against a raster
jgarnett: or they "snap" to other layers
emily_g: do you want to be able to round off all the coordinates in your geometry to 2 decimal places instead of default of double precision?
jgarnett: perhaps we are having trouble with the "precision" aspect of your question
jgarnett: do you want to let people select a point; and type in exactly the coordinates?
mauricio: maybe
jgarnett: the usual answer is to "zoom in"
jgarnett: and then read the coordinates in the bottom of the screen.
hbullen2: That might be nice, for some people I know
jgarnett: JTS has a concept of percision (and we could tract how "accurate" your data is allowed to be)
jgarnett: and then as you zoom in we could replace a "point"
jgarnett: with a square of the correct size
jgarnett: so people coudl *see* the percision they are working with.
hbullen2: We told them to edit the point with the default feature editor but they didn't like that alot
jgarnett: so what you have is a story of something your customer woudl like to do...
jgarnett: .. snapping (to other features or to grid) is one way to help
jgarnett: but I think you should talk to your users and see what they expect.
jgarnett: are they trying to enter in data from like an onsite measurements or something?
mauricio: yes
mib_qm8pbk left the room (quit: "http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client").
jgarnett: are they wanting to do "data entry"
jgarnett: or are they wanting to use the mouse?
hbullen2: they pretty much had a list of airports and wanted to get an intern to edit them. So they wanted it to be very easy, thats all.
jgarnett: (and it is line data rather than points?)
simboss [i=4f1b0e8b@gateway/web/ajax/mibbit.com/x-f7e1e4ff993fcde7] entered the room.
mauricio: is important introduce points coord
mauricio: but too
mauricio: the length of line string
mauricio: segments
mauricio: distance betwen linestrings
jgarnett: well I can think of all sorts of creative ways to do it :
jgarnett: -)
jgarnett: here is an example...
jgarnett: 1. make a tool.
jgarnett: 2. and a view
mauricio: god
mauricio: good
jgarnett: 3. allow people to enter a coordinate in the view
jgarnett: 4. as they use the tool they can use the middle mouse button to change the length of their line
jgarnett: (you can report that in the view; or in a "bubble" on the screen next to the line)
jgarnett: 5. as they move the pointer the line (of the length mentioned above) will change direction (barring)
jgarnett: 6. The user can then click to "Accept"
jgarnett: 7. and continue ...
mauricio: ok that was my first idea
jgarnett: that should result in a pretty clear user expereince. But until you build it and try it ... you do not know if your user would like it.
jgarnett: but you should really know up front what "percision" your users would like to work in; have them enter that into the view; and make sure they are zoomed in enough for tis to actually work.
jgarnett: ---
jgarnett: the "Sqaure" idea is actually better (since it communicates the limits of what JTS math can do ...)
jgarnett: another "simple" thing to do is ..;
jgarnett: 1. move the pointer as per normal
jgarnett: 2. allow a key board modifier that when held; moves the pointer at 1/2 speed
jgarnett: and has a bubble showing the percision.
jgarnett: 3. have seperate key modifier for horizontal; and virticle
jgarnett: (so people can worry about one at a time)
jgarnett: 4. use the buble to show the actual value.
jgarnett: so they woudl need to choose if they are playing with "length"
jgarnett: or with "location"
jgarnett: but yeah try out some stuff; or talk to your customer.
jgarnett: uDig will kind of let you build anything.
mauricio: ok we are working in some spike to try the idea
jgarnett: can we wrap up the meeting?
mauricio: that is ok for me
jgarnett: dassouki; you had a postgis question
jgarnett: (I will post the logs now)