[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: visualisation of postal codes in marble shape via plugin?
From:       "Simon Schmeisser" <mail_to_wrt () gmx ! de>
Date:       2008-09-25 21:19:50
Message-ID: 20080925211950.247030 () gmx ! net
[Download RAW message or body]

Hi guys,

so to keep it short, yes you will need to fiddle around a little bit with \
your system. The marble flake shape ( or geoshape as I call it, lacking a \
better name) depends on koffice 2.0 alpha 9 or so and marble from trunk \
from about a month ago. It's not more up to date because I was on a bike \
tour for the last month. ( crossing the alps). So maybe next week I will \
manage to update it to work with the trunk versions of marble and koffice \
2. But I also need to pack stuff for moving across Germany for studies, so \
my time is very limited. Afterwards I won't have internet for some weeks, \
so no updates then as well.

Anyway, here comes a short list of what it currently CAN do:
- display a map
- save the position, the zoom and the orientation
- load that
- navigate around with the toolbox
- undo for navigating
- search for a certain place ( no undo yet )
- save a fallback-image as well, which will get displayed in OpenOffice and \
others. (OpenOffice will only save the image, so don't use OpenOffice to \
edit files with maps in them if you ever want to change them again)

So there's not really support for displaying placemarks/dots whatever on \
them map. Except for a trick:

1. Go to the marble data folder
2. copy the map you want to use to a new directory
3. change the maps name and stuff in the .dgml file
4. create a .kml file with your coordinates in it. (have a look at the \
cities.kml file for example) 5. add this .kml file in your dgml file
6. in the marble flake shape select your new dgml file as map.
7. done

It's a hack, but it's the only thing that is currently working that i can \
offer

long term goal is of course to support this kind of workflow.
My next goal besides fixing some bugs and keeping it up to date is to allow \
to include a .kml file in the .odt/odp/od... and to display that. It will \
require some work on marble as well, so don't expect it too soon

Also one could write a marble plugin, which takes it's data from some \
spreadsheet-like stuff, which is propably what you are thinking of. Also \
Kross integration would be cool, but that's all very long-term goals.

So there you go, now you know about as much about the current situation of \
the marble flake shape as I do, and since I'm its creator that should be \
about everything.

Regards
Simon

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 13:05:50 +0200
> Von: Johannes Simon <johannes.simon@gmail.com>
> An: "For developer\'s discussion about KOffice" <koffice-devel@kde.org>
> CC: Stephan Wassipaul <wassipaul@gmx.at>
> Betreff: Re: visualisation of postal codes in marble shape via plugin?

> Hi Stephan,
> 
> I think that's even something the marble shape should support
> out-of-the-box. 
> Essentially, you want to create a diagram. Your spreadsheet contains the 
> labels and the values for the points on the diagram. The only difference
> is 
> that you don't use the chart shape to visualize your data, but the marble \
>  shape. Ideally, their behavior should be as similar as possible when fed
> with 
> a data source. It could automatically determine if your data for the
> points on 
> the map is coordinates or zip codes, a really simple and quick algorithm
> could 
> do that.
> 
> On the technical side, it could ask you if you permanently want to
> download 
> the zip code -> coordinate database. That depends on how much storage
> would be 
> needed, and how good it could be downloaded separately, depending on the 
> regions you need.
> 
> I'm really interested in what the marble shape author and our marble co-
> maintainer (yeah, that's you Inge ;) think about this.
> 
> Regards,
> - Joh
> 
> On Wednesday 03 September 2008 17:04:44 Stephan Wassipaul wrote:
> > Hey,
> > 
> > I'd like to visualize (austrian) postal codes (which are stored in a
> spread
> > sheet) on a map. So after some googling and finding out that I'd
> probably
> > need to convert them to coordinates (which should be possible using the
> > database from http://opengeodb.hoppe-media.com/index.php?FrontPage,
> > although the site looks kind of outdated...), the koffice marble flake
> came
> > to my mind. Ideally, I'd like to select a column of names, a column of
> > phone numbers and a column of postal codes and then just run plugins ->
> > visualise on a map. Now my question ist the following: Would it be
> possible
> > to achieve my goal by writing a plugin taking advantge of the koffice
> > architecture?
> > 
> > If so, what exactly would be needed (sorry, I know the koffice
> architecture
> > only from blog posts) and which programming language could I use?
> > 
> > The problem is that I'm not a real programmer, only familiar with \
> > python (and a little bit php), but I could probably learn an other \
> > programming language pretty quickly as long as it's a scripting \
> > language. If the
> above
> > is only doable using a non-scripting language, it won't be worth the
> effort
> > (it's nothing really urgent, only nice to have), so that's why I'm
> asking
> > here before digging deeper into the documentation... Also, I'm using
> > Kubuntu 8.04 (still the KDE 3 version), so getting the current alpha up
> and
> > running would be quite an effort (at least for me, I only switched to
> linux
> > about a year ago, never compiled anything, never altered my
> > /etc/apt/sources.list etc.), so I'd like to be sure that what I'm
> striving
> > for is doable...
> > 
> > If something of the above is unclear (which is easily possible since
> > english is not my native language) or if you need further informations
> in
> > order to be able to answer my question, please don't hesitate to \
> > contact
> me
> > - I promise I'll write back as soon as possible.
> > 
> > Thank you very much in advance for your efforts and for doing an
> impressive
> > job on coding koffice!
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > Stephan Wassipaul
> > 
> > PS: In case you're wondering why I'd want to do that: I'm a volunteer \
> > of AFS which is non-profit organization organising student exchanges. \
> > Being able to visualize postal codes would be handy for all kinds of \
> > things,
> e.g.
> > when you need to find volunteers living close to a certain host
> family...
> > (we assert a volunteer - serving as a contact person - to every \
> > exchange student).
> 
> _______________________________________________
> koffice-devel mailing list
> koffice-devel@kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel

-- 
Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger gehört? Der kann`s mit allen: \
http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger \
_______________________________________________ koffice-devel mailing list
koffice-devel@kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]