Implementing an in-house “New Project Wizard” for QGIS

Recently, we were required to implement a custom “New Project Wizard” for use in a client’s internal QGIS installation. The goal here was that users would be required to fill out certain metadata fields whenever they created a new QGIS project. Fortunately, the PyQGIS (and underlying Qt) libraries makes this possibly, and relatively straightforward to do. Qt has a powerful API for creating multi-page “wizard” type dialogs, via the QWizard and QWizardPage classes. Let’s have a quick look at writing a custom wizard using these classes, and finally we’ll hook it into the QGIS interface using some PyQGIS magic. We’ll start super simple, creating a single page wizard with no settings. To do this we first create a Page1 subclass […]

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Exploring Reports in QGIS 3.0 – the Ultimate Guide!

In 2017 North Road ran a crowd funding campaign for extending QGIS’ Print Composer and adding a brand new reporting framework to QGIS. Thanks to numerous generous backers, this campaign was a success. With the final QGIS 3.0 release just around the corner, we thought this was a great time to explore the new reporting engine and what it offers. We’ll start with a relatively simple project, containing some administrative boundaries, populated places, ports and airports. Using the “Project” – “New Report” command, we then create a new blank report. Initially, there’s not much to look at – the dialog which is displayed looks much like the QGIS 3.0 Layout Designer, except for the new “Report Organizer” panel shown on […]

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24 Days of QGIS 3.0 Features

If you’re not following @northroadgeo on Twitter, you’ve probably missed our recent “24 Days of QGIS” countdown. Over December, we’ve been highlighting 24 different features which are coming with the QGIS 3.0 release. We’ve collected all of these below so you can catch up: 1 of #24daysofqgis : Coming soon in #QGIS 3.0 – inbuilt CAD style digitizing tools, for easy rectangle/circle/ellipse+other creation! (Thanks to Loïc Bartoletti) #qgisadvent pic.twitter.com/Y7zjPO6Axh — North Road (@northroadgeo) December 1, 2017 Day 2 of #24daysofqgis : Coming soon in #QGIS 3.0 – responsive autocompleted field values when selecting by feature attributes! (Thanks to @nyalldawson) #qgisadvent pic.twitter.com/ySQPKYihIv — North Road (@northroadgeo) December 2, 2017 Day 3 of #24daysofqgis : Coming soon in #QGIS 3.0 – interactively […]

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QGIS layouts rewrite – progress report #1

Following our recent successful QGIS Layout and Reporting Engine crowdfunding campaign, we’ve been hard at working ripping up the internals of the QGIS 2.x print composer and rebuilding a brand new, shiny QGIS layouts engine. This is exciting work – it’s very satisfying to be able to cleanup a lot of the old composer code in QGIS and take opportunities along the way to fix long standing bugs and add new features. While it’s not ready for daily use yet, there’s already been a lot of interesting changes which have landed in the layouts work as a result of this campaign. Let’s take a look at what’s been implemented so far… We’ve added support for different measurements units all throughout layouts. […]

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QGIS Layout and Reporting Engine Campaign – a success!

Thanks to the tireless efforts and incredible generosity of the QGIS user community, our crowdfunded QGIS Layout and Reporting Engine campaign was a tremendous success! We’ve reached the funding goal for this project, and as a result QGIS 3.0 will include a more powerful print composer with a reworked code base. You can read more about what we have planned at the campaign page. We’d like to take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the backers who have pledged to support this project: The Swiss QGIS User group (funded preliminary work in refactoring how compositions are handled and stored within projects) The QGIS Grant Program (2016) (funded preliminary work allowing for a flexible property framework which will be […]

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QGIS Composer Rewrite and Layout Engine crowdfund – half way there!

If you’ve been following our recent blog posts, you’ll be aware that we are currently running a crowd funding campaign to extend the capabilities of QGIS’ print composer. You can read full details about this over at the campaign page. The good news is that we’ve just hit the mid way point of the funds! Many generous backers have stepped up with contributions and we’re well on the way to reaching the funding goal. However, we still need your help make this work a reality. Right now, what we need most is interested users and community members who will reach out to their local QGIS users and seek more backing for the campaign. We need to publicise the campaign beyond the regular online QGIS […]

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QGIS Composer Rewrite and Layout Engine crowdfund launched!

At North Road we believe that crowdfunding is a sustainable way to maintain and enhance open source software, like the QGIS open source GIS package. We’ve run a number of successful crowdfunding campaigns in the past, including support in QGIS for live layer effects, a point cluster renderer, and a unique value renderer for raster layers. Now, we’re proud to announce our latest crowd funding endeavour, and our biggest to date, the QGIS Layout and Reporting Engine Campaign. This campaign covers stage 1 of a large, ongoing project to modernise and expand on QGIS’ print composer and layout facilities. Over time QGIS’ composer functionality has grown extensively and now is capable of creating flexible, high quality cartographic outputs. However, we’ve now hit […]

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Point cluster renderer crowdfunding – successful!

Great news! Thanks in part to some generous last minute pledges, our QGIS Point Cluster Renderer campaign has successfully reached its target. This means that QGIS 3.0 will now include a full feature and flexible cluster renderer. In the meantime, we’d like to extend our warmest thanks to the following generous contributors, whose pledges have made this work possible: Andreas Neumann Qtibia Engineering (Tudor Barascu) Karl-Magnus Jönsson Geonesia (Nicolas Ponzo) Plus numerous additional anonymous backers whose generous contributions are also highly valued. If you run into any of these funders at a QGIS user group or conference, make sure you treat them like the GIS rock-stars they are! Keep an eye out on our social media accounts as we’ll be […]

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Point cluster renderer crowdfunding – the final countdown!

At North Road we are currently running a crowdfunding campaign to sponsor work on a new “Point Cluster Renderer” for QGIS. This is a really exciting new feature which would help make possible some neat styling effects which just aren’t possible in QGIS at the moment. The campaign is now in its final hours and we’ve still got some way to go to reach the campaign goals. If you’re interested in seeing this feature happen, now’s the time to jump onboard and contribute to the campaign! Before time runs out we’d like to share some more details on how the cluster renderer can be enhanced through the use of data defined symbol overrides. Data defined overrides are where a huge part […]

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Point cluster renderer crowdfund launched!

We’ve just launched a new crowd funding campaign to implement a live point cluster renderer within QGIS. Full details are available on the campaign page. This is a really exciting new feature which would help make possible some neat styling effects which just aren’t possible in QGIS at the moment. To make it possible we need 2300€ pledged before 31 August. You can help make this a reality by supporting the campaign or by sharing the page and increasing exposure to the campaign. Updates to follow!

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