Allow individual file formats to be selected in the Export Tool

[mataharimhairi]

Proposed by: Mhairi O'Hara

Summary: Allow individual file formats to be selected in the Export Tool for easier exporting, including the OSMAnd .obf file format.

Skills Required: Ruby on Rails, Perl, Shell, SQLite, PostgreSQL, HTML5, CSS

Possible Mentors: Dražen Odobašić

Notes: This project proposal is taken from the hot-exports, where it is listed as issue #78 and issue #77:

The Export Tool and users of the tool would greatly benefit from the additional feature of being able to select a tickbox for each of the different format types, allowing people to choose which format/formats they're interested in generating. People may only be interested in generating shapefiles and nothing else 99% of the time. Not generating the other file formats will save on disk space.

This is probably simple enough for somebody who knows Rails on Ruby (RoR), as the interface (for create/update job) needs to be changed, with specific format flag fields added to the database, and the corresponding logic in the Perl script. Sometimes, there are issues with SHP files, as they have a 2GB limit per file, and some exports generate more than this limit. Perhaps the SpatiaLite format should be used as a standard spatial data container.

[cgiovando]

@mataharimhairi this idea sounds like it could be grouped with others, maybe under #8 ? Let's assess the amount of effort required and decide if it's worth keeping it separate.

[cgiovando]

It also appears to be duplicate of one of the tasks in #16

[mataharimhairi]

@cgiovando issue #8 should actually be broken down into multiple issues/project ideas, as they were originally grouped as potentials. just waiting to hear back from Dražen if any of them can feasibly be completed in three months.

I have also updated issue #16 so that this task is no longer covered in it, basically splitting them up.

[dodobas]

This a full-stack task, as an applicant needs to change frontend, backend and processing code, and the skills @mataharimhairi noted are correct.

@cgiovando don't really know where to add comments, but ... I would have two proposals for HOT Exports. One focused on adding new functionality to the service, like this one and other enhancement issues, and the other one would be #16 that would focus on UI usability/design.

This separation will allow clear distinction between two applicant profiles, one more focused on frontend and other focused on the backend. Not sure how much detail is required for the initial GSOC proposal, but in essence each proposal would be directly linked with existing issues, and in 3 months chosen applicants will certainly resolve some of them.

Willing to mentor...

[mataharimhairi]

I've added dodobas as a mentor for the project idea and issue #18 (Add OSMAnd .obf file format). I will close the other issue now.

[mataharimhairi]

This project idea is now subsumed by the HOT Export Tool Tech Challenge:

http://hot.openstreetmap.org/hot_export_tool_tech_challenge