Positions attribute in text symbolizer

[artemp]

Patch from kosmosnimki (http://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/mapnik-users/2009-April/001787.html) and correspondence:

{{{
The #1 most visible tweak was placing labels at different positions
around points: we added a "positions" sattribute to TextSymbolizer,
with values like "s,n,e,se,ne,w" that would get tried in that order
for every label to be placed.

Vladimir

---

Hello Dane,

Just created diff file with our latest changes.
The svn revision was 1363.
I used "svn diff > my-patch-file.diff" command.

Please, let me know anything.

Michael Vorotnikov.
}}}

[artemp]

[springmeyer] Patch from kosmosnimki (http://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/mapnik-users/2009-April/001787.html) and correspondence:

{{{
The #1 most visible tweak was placing labels at different positions
around points: we added a "positions" sattribute to TextSymbolizer,
with values like "s,n,e,se,ne,w" that would get tried in that order
for every label to be placed.

Vladimir

---

Hello Dane,

Just created diff file with our latest changes.
The svn revision was 1363.
I used "svn diff > my-patch-file.diff" command.

Please, let me know anything.

Michael Vorotnikov.
}}}

[artemp]

[springmeyer] {{{
In the future there are several things you should do to make the patch smaller:

• Use Unix line ending in your text editor or do $ svn diff -x --ignore-eol-style
• Use four spaces instead of actual tabs or do $ svn diff -x --ignore-all-space

Besides removing whitespace and line endings, I have made several changes to get the patch to compile:

• Removed all the 'get_shape_name' references - was this just for testing or does it have an impact on placement?
• Added back jpeg support
• added dummy functions in placement_finder and label_collision_detector to allow the cairo_renderer to temporarily use previous function signatures
• changed the 'for each' usage with builder.Places() in placement finder which did not compile as it is not compliant C++ STL

I have attached the modified patch to this email. Can you apply to a pristine trunk checkout and see if it still works for you?

Also, can you explain more about the 'get_shape_name' code that I removed? What did it do?
And can you also explain why allow_overlap has been changed to a std::string? It seems like it should stay a bool and some other attribute should be created if a std::string is needed.

Thank you,

Dane
}}}

[artemp]

[springmeyer] My modified patch attached.

[artemp]

[springmeyer] adding Herm as we have discussed issues related to this ticket.

[artemp]

[springmeyer] This feature is now working in the textplacement branch using a different approach than the original patch, so closing this and moving to that milestone http://trac.mapnik.org/milestone/GSOC%20Text%20Placement until it is merged into trunk.