Thoughts of an open-source Java developer and Eclipse (RCP and IDE) user.
uDig has just been featured on Very Spatial TV's latest episode as part two of their series about GIS on a mac. It consists of a quick demonstration of downloading and installing uDig, as well as viewing a couple shapefiles and a WMS layer. Some basic editing is also shown.
Labels: udig
GeoInformatics.com has a recent article about open source and open standards in the GIS world. uDig and Refractions Research are mentioned near the bottom. I enjoy the parts where they mention uDig's user-friendliness:
The "user friendly" part of the name shines through since users can simply drop URLs (Web addresses) of Web services onto the uDig map window and have them added to the map. Refractions takes great pride in its product's role in OGC Web Services Initiative Phase 3. Says Ramsey, "I think I am most impressed by the different usability of the different clients in the final demonstration; simply compare the amount of interaction required to display airports using a feature portrayal service. uDig [required] one drag and drop every thing else was automated others required up to three catalog lookups, and cut-and-paste URLs."
Just a quick note to point out EasyEclipse has been released! Download only one file and you have a fully functional Eclipse workbench. This is really cool, as we use Eclipse quite a bit at Refractions, not just for uDig development, and have often experienced problems setting up Eclipse (downloaded the platform, rather than SDK, etc). We hope to maybe snag the installer they use for the mac and use it for uDig :)
Here is a quick tutorial I wrote because I was sick of trying to figure out how to add tracing support to my plug-ins, as I would forget how to do it each time.
org.ossim.renderer/debug=true
org.ossim.renderer/debug/rendering=true
/**
* Performs the Platform.getDebugOption true check on the provided trace
*
* @param trace constant, defined in the Trace class
* @return true if -debug is on for this plugin
*/
public static boolean isDebugging( final String trace ){
return getDefault().isDebugging() &&
"true".equalsIgnoreCase(Platform.getDebugOption(trace)); //$NON-NLS-1$
}
/**
* Outputs a message or an Exception if the current plug-in is debugging.
*
* @param message if not null, message will be sent to standard out
* @param e if not null, e.printStackTrace() will be called.
*/
public static void trace( String message, Throwable e) {
if( getDefault().isDebugging() ) {
if( message != null ) System.out.println( message );
if( e != null ) e.printStackTrace();
}
}
package org.ossim.renderer;
/**
* Constants for use with Eclipse tracing API.
* Sample use:<pre><code>
* import static org.ossim.renderer.Trace.RENDERING;
*
* if( RendererPlugin.isDebugging( RENDERING ) ){
* System.out.println( "your message here" );
* }
* </code></pre>
*/
public interface Trace {
/** You may set this to "true" in your .options file */
public static final String RENDERING =
"org.ossim.renderer/debug/rendering"; //$NON-NLS-1$
}
int width = Math.abs(max.x - min.x);
int height = Math.abs(max.y - min.y);
if (RendererPlugin.isDebugging(Trace.RENDERING)) {
System.out.println("Width: " + width + ", height: " + height);
}
I skipped the Borland keynote so I could pack up my stuff and get ready to return to Victoria. I started the day with a talk on Testing Applications Using the Eclipse Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) which included an amazing demonstration of automated GUI testing. TPTP is definitely something that requires more research and contains many interesting elements including manual testing, performance testing, execution histories.
Comparing Apache and Eclipse
So today was the start of the Open Source Pavilion at EclipseCon, I spent almost the entire day there. I decided to head back to the hotel once it was finished rather than participate in any of the BOFs. My feet are quite tired and I am feeling quite tired myself.
