tl; dr: we are proposing MetaSearch for inclusion into QGIS core, to help the discovery (download/add, find/bind) workflow in QGIS. There are Python dependencies and build workflows that need to be discussed/resolved, but overall we believe it's a good time to start this discussion.
Devs: as per https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/wiki/QGIS-Core-Integration, I'd like to discuss the possibility of integrating the MetaSearch Catalogue Client into QGIS as a core plugin. To quote Tim (Sutton): `tomkralidis: btw it would be great to see the CSW client made ready to go into QGIS core one of these days - its a missing piece from our 'out of the box OGC compliance'` Plugin: http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/MetaSearch/ Notes: - supports the badly-in-need publish/find/bind SDI workflow, allowing users to discover data/services and add them to their map - OGC services are seamlessly supported for dynamic add layer dialogues - over 1300 downloads in the last 6 weeks from plugins.qgis.org - interest across multiple organizations and countries (development, pull requests, documentation, feature requests/enhancements/bug reports, translation, etc.) - documentation: currently Sphinx, hosted on GitHub, translated on Transifex - extensible, future work will include additional APIs (OpenSearch, etc.) - initially forked from the excellent CSWClient work by NextGIS Dependencies: - user: https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/blob/master/requirements.txt - developer: https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/blob/master/requirements-dev.txt - managed in https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/blob/master/pavement.py#L60 - OWSLib is a hard requirement - I'd be willing to move off Jinja2 (HTML templating) and pygments (Syntax highlighting) in favour of something already in QGIS; these are self contained in https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/blob/master/plugin/MetaSearch/util.py#L55 and https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/blob/master/plugin/MetaSearch/util.py#L103, if there are easy alternatives already supported in the QGIS Python environment - I'm not familiar with QGIS development/build workflow/etc., so I'm not sure how the dependencies are/will be handled. Does/will QGIS have a Python package dependency strategy? Build/packaging: - uses Paver to build, package, bundle and upload to plugins.qgis.org - **dependencies are bundled with the plugin in isolation** - how does/would this look in a QGIS build? Issues: - UI: thanks to Anita, Tim and others on UI comments and development in Vienna last week. We are working on these in master branch currently - default connections file: there is interest in organizations publishing their CSW to this list as a means to have it default in QGIS. Current process at https://github.com/geopython/MetaSearch/wiki/MetaSearch-Default-Connections-List. We have Travis CI setup to always test the default connections so the list does not become stale over time (as well as pep8 checks, etc.) I hope this provides enough of an overview to move the discussion forward. Thanks for consideration. Tom Kralidis, Richard Duivenvoorde, Angelos Tzotsos, _______________________________________________ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer