Re: [udig-devel] Data Format, Text Delimited

[Adrian Custer <acuster@xxxxxxxxx>]

John,

As a workaround for now, you might be able to use OOcalc to edit the
dBase file directly. I just tried and it works.

Shapefiles come in sets with the same base name and different
extensions. All of the attribute data in shapefiles reside in the .dbf
file. OpenOffice.org's Calc spreadsheet can read and write .dbf files.
So you can open up the .dbf file as well as your data file, sort them
into a similar order, paste your data into the .dbf file and save that
file. Then, when you open your shapefile into uDig, the data will
appear. 

Next you're going to want to style your maps according to the
attributes, aren't you? Well we just can't quite to that yet either but
are getting close.

--adrian



On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 11:25 -0600, John Oeffinger wrote:
> Hello Paul,
> 
> Thanks...I really like the uDIG interface. I am able to use it for  
> some census related information and have found it very straight- 
> forward and intuitive. I dropped GRASS last year because I just did  
> not have the time to go through the learning curve. I appreciate the  
> hard work you and the members of the uDIG development community put  
> in to making this a very solid, user-friendly (even for newbies),  
> application...John
> 
> On Nov 30, 2006, at 11:18 AM, Paul Ramsey wrote:
> 
> > John,
> >
> > As you can see, the answer to your question is "no, not yet  
> > possible". However, I am very glad you asked, and in such a  
> > succinct way -- this is one of the classic desktop GIS use cases,  
> > and a high priority for us going forward.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > Adrian Custer wrote:
> >> Hey all,
> >> On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 07:46 -0800, Paul Ramsey wrote:
> >>> In your understanding, that would involve loading the text file  
> >>> as a  table, then joining it to an existing spatial layer (of  
> >>> election  areas, or counties or something), correct?
> >>>
> >>> Paul
> >> I was just talking to Jesse about this yesterday. Such a  
> >> functionality
> >> is definitely needed and now, thanks to the work on the table,  
> >> starts to
> >> be possible. It will require
> >>   (1) being able to load tables from text file, say as Comma  
> >> Separated
> >> Values, and   (2) being able to join based on a key, which will  
> >> have to be unique in
> >> the text file
> >> Note also that the general solution would require being able to  
> >> create
> >> new columns in the shapefile attribute table to serve as the key.  
> >> This
> >> is needed because it's not guaranteed that the user can calculate  
> >> from
> >> scratch the values in one of the geometric columns to use that as a
> >> join: consider a shapefile of states without any attributes where the
> >> user would have no way to create a join column in their CSV file.  
> >> So we have a little bit of work to go on this feature request...
> >> cheers,
> >> adrian
> >>> On 30-Nov-06, at 7:22 AM, John Oeffinger wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I'm a newbie to both GIS and uDIG so please excuse this very  
> >>>> basic  question.
> >>>>
> >>>> I have gone through the walkthroughs, watched the Flash  
> >>>> tutorial,  and checked the help area.
> >>>>
> >>>> Can a user add text delimited data to a map?
> >>>>
> >>>> Can someone point me to information on what needs to be included  
> >>>> in  a data file to be added to a map?
> >>>>
> >>>> All I need to do is add election return data or some non-census   
> >>>> state statistical information. Your help would be appreciated  
> >>>> in  learning the steps needed to accomplish this.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> >>>> http://udig.refractions.net
> >>>> http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> >>> http://udig.refractions.net
> >>> http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> >> http://udig.refractions.net
> >> http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> > http://udig.refractions.net
> > http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
> >
> 
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