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antoniocarlos

609 post(s)
#09-Jan-18 23:12

Hi.

Why is it that if I rename a component on the project pane that is also on a map. The component immediately stops showing on the map rather than changing its name on the map?

ACGT


How soon?

Dimitri


7,413 post(s)
#10-Jan-18 06:03

Thats is one of the many small details that will be added soon. Part of the community-driven aspect of "Edge" is the opportunity to prioritize those details people prefer.

I am not sure if your "why" question was rhetorical, but if not the answer opens an interesting theme: the effect is an aspect of the data-centric, "everything is a table" approach, where the name of a thing is what it is. If you change the name of a component from Paul to John, but a map says "show data from Paul" then the map has nothing to show since there is no more Paul. It is just like a query that refers to a table called [Paul] which now is [John] or a project elsewhere that might refer to a data source that once was [Beatles]::[Paul] and is now [Beatles]::[John].

When everything really is a table the names of things are a big deal, because people and processes and queries might be using them, and the more accessible such things are (and they are very accessible in the "everything is a table" world) outside of the internal world of the application, the more they will be used. So if you change the name and you really want to automate a thousand and one fine points you have to go through very many possible uses and edit on the fly all such circumstances that might be affected by a name change.

At some point even people very committed to all the fine points of automation might call it a day. Do you really want the system to automatically go through all possible cascades of use, in scripts and queries and such, in this project and in all others that might use it (or... are currently open and right now are using it), to automatically change names when somebody renames a component? Many people would say "no... automatically change the names in maps that use the thing but otherwise let me deal with that manually..." And then if you change it automatically in the map you should probably also change it automatically in labels and other derived components.

It is usually a simpler situation in "classic" GIS like Arc, Q or Release 8, where very definitely not everything is a table and thus such machinery is less exposed for people to use in very varied and extensive ways. With 8 it is a pretty simple deal in terms of hard wiring (a lot of it, but simpler conceptually than in the totally open "everything is a table" world...) to go down the list of where a name needs to be changed.

artlembo


3,400 post(s)
#10-Jan-18 17:45

I wonder if one way to handle this aspect is to add "triggers" to a table. This is sort of what Postgres and PostGIS use when handling the geometry_columns table. That table is sort of the Rosetta Stone for how Postgres can keep on top of things.

So, if you delete a table, then the trigger also deletes the table from geometry_columns. If you change the name of the geometry column from 'geom' to 'g', the trigger also makes that update in the geometry_columns table.

antoniocarlos

609 post(s)
#10-Jan-18 19:06

To be honest. I'm having all kinds of issues (not big ones but annoying non the less) related to the "everything is a table" paradigm. Being a much more visual person, for me everything is a drawing or an image (I miss surfaces!). My hope is that as Edge becomes more "GISsy" some of the logic related to the GUI which seems to be a work in progress, becomes more clear to me. Anyway I am enjoying learning Spatial SQL and the new GUI and I believe (expect) it will pay off in the mid term for me. Thanks for the explanation btw.

Cheers


How soon?

Dimitri


7,413 post(s)
#11-Jan-18 06:08

My hope is that as Edge becomes more "GISsy"

I agree 100%. That's why 9 is now a "pre-release," because it is becoming more GIS. I encourage a reading of the FAQ, where it sets forth the focus for 9 in the near term as interactive GIS, cartography and presentation. I also strongly encourage all suggestions for what anybody would like to see in pre-packaged, point and click encapsulations of frequently done tasks.

By way of more explanation, why the initial data-centric approach: the fundamental, fully parallel data engine and associated tools came first because you need all that infrastructure and capability first to do really smooth, super-fast and genuinely modern interactive GIS, cartography and presentation. Without that, GUI features get wired up as a collection of special cases that are full of choke points and unevolvable tangles, like a programming epoxy that forcibly glues odd parts together in a way no one can change.

Once you have the Radian engine, well, then anything is possible, easy to do, easy to change and easy to evolve. More than anything the Radian engine makes a genuinely community driven approach possible, because whatever is being done is not cast in special case, programming epoxy. Want something that now takes a few snippets of SQL to appear in a point and click button? Easy.

That does take some good taste and balance, of course, because the last thing I think anybody wants is to see a proliferation of zillions of buttons to each handle a special case. But there, too, a community driven approach helps define the right balance.

As 9 steamrolls forward we will have that balance between exposing full flexibility to let people do whatever they want while also providing plenty of pre-packaged capabilities for those moments when one just wants a point and click. Feedback using Edge is the key.

lionel

995 post(s)
#13-Jan-18 09:08

I Begin to like using SQL with dataport , SQL wizard but i think documentation should cover more sql statement to become à reference . I Was amaze that manifold Doc Nevers use Link to wikipédia. As Always gis or SQL engine is about algo and Hope to read more on index( nns optimisationn in manifold 9 Doc .The question that come often is how to do manifold 8 in manifold9 paradigm way !!!


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