TODO file for Gtopo

Tom Trebisky  9/18/2007

These are ideas, subject to revision as the time to implement
them arises, but will give you an idea where gtopo is heading.

-- Currently known and not yet fixed bugs:

* Series 2 (and maybe 1) maps have a bug (sort of cosmetic)
The maplets only match at the center of the viewed area,
apparently there is a pixel change issue at this scale
as latitude changes (the same issue is there with other
map series, but is never a real issue with the size of
screen usually used).

* Now that I have 4 states on my machine, gtopo can be a little
slow starting up.  This isn't bad on my fast computer with a
decently fast disk, but other people may object.  What I may
want to do is to build and keep an index on disk to speed this
up.  Actually on a linux system, this may be slow the first time,
but subsequent gtopo startups are fast thanks to the disk cache,
but this may mostly benefit me as a developer, most people will
just start it once and then use it for long periods.

-- fixed bugs, release notes, activity log.

9/18/2007 - putting version 0.9.7 up for download.
Changed the static "box" for map center position to a tiny
blinking cross that is easy to locate and hard to confuse with
a symbol for a structure on the map.  Changed the right mouse
key to zoom scales one way when clicked, the other way when
clicked with control held down.  This now does the same function
as the page up/down to change scales and does not go in a cycle
as it used to.  Getting ready to allow the mouse to be used to
move around in a much different way (just grab map and slide it).

9/11/2007 - put version 0.9.6 up for download.
This is a feature addition version, now the keyboard is involved
and page up/down change map series, and keyboard arrow keys move
around.  Left mouse clicks still recenter on the spot clicked.

9/5/2007 - put version 0.9.5 up for download.

9/4/2007 - When using the SI_D01 full US maps, when it zooms
from STATE to ATLAS, it looses position substantially.
This is now understood and much better, there is still some
error but it is a lot smaller and manageable

9/1/2007 - I have made it a lot harder to wander off the edges of
the map coverage and get lost in white screen regions,
both while using the mouse to move and when changing
scale.  Some of the map images include sizeable sections
of scanned white paper, and there is nothing I can (at
least not easily) do about preventing wandering into
these areas.

9/1/2007 - put version 0.9.4 up for download.
Version 0.9.4 fixes two major bugs.  One was preventing it from viewing
the filesets from Backcountry explorer, the other from viewing the 500K
series when the SI_D01 full USA information was present.

8/30/2007 -  When using the SI_D01 full US maps, and zooming
from ATLAS to 500K, it can find no maps.  Fixed,
now it sees all 3 map series over the entire USA.

8/30/2007 - Certain map sets (like backcountry explorer), which
have C and G named tpq files can display nothing in 100K
and maybe 500k.  This seems fine with lower case names.
Fixed 9/1/2007, this wasa problem with mixed case filenames
such as C37120E1.tpq or some such nonsense, now OK.

8/30/2007 - put version 0.9.3 up for download.
I made a number of changes to this version so it now runs on 64 bit machines
(in particular linux x86_64 systems).  It also will run on big endian machines
(like Mac OS-X with powerPC processors, but my ability to test on these
targets is limited.  And it still runs on 32 bit i386 machines!
It still needs some work to handle the 100K series properly in the new
generation TOPO! releases (such as my 4.2 Nevada set).  It handles 100K
just fine with my old Arizona and California 2.6.9 and 2.7.6 version sets.

8/30/2007 - this currently does not run on an x86_64 machine, which my machine
just became, so I am working on that, and worrying about regression
testing (my home machine is a 32 bit, so I will just have to
drag my feet upgrading it).  Fixed 8-28-2007, so it now runs on
both 64 and 32 bit intel machines, and while things were being
generalized, it was made to work on a big endian machine too.

8/30/2007 - gtopo builds nicely on a big-endian OS-X mac laptop, and
runs with some reported problems, what I need is access to
such a machine for half a day or so.

=== Things to definitely do, but not top priority

* Be able to print to a 8.5 by 11 inch equivalent postscript
file.  In particular the 7.5 minute maps should print at the
true 1:24,000 scale

* Be able to extract a region and emit it as a .jpg file to
be included in web pages or email or whatever.

* Get keyboard stuff working and use +- to flip forward and
back in the scale series, as well as other things.

* Make it do byte swapping so it will run on a big endian
machine (like a power PC mac, which it fails on as of 0.9.3).

=== Things to maybe do, or maybe not.

* Use a notebook with tabs on the right side to switch
between map series and indicate the current series in lieu
of (or in addition to) the right mouse click scale switching
currently used.

=== Things to probably not do.

Somewhere, I read the suggestion that a GtkImage widget could be
used in lieu of a drawing area for the kind of thing I am doing
(namely copying a single pixmap to the drawing area).  I don't know
what advantages there would be to this, maybe it would be faster
and lighter weight.  I don't know if there would be any issues
receiving events.  Pixmaps would be sent to such a widget via
gtk_widget_queue_draw.
