SMASH 1.12.0 is out!

Dear all, maybe the real deal is not that SMASH 1.12 is out, but that after such a long time a write about it.

In the last year of my re-organisation after HydroloGIS I just stopped having time for this, so now get everything that has been missing (well, just the more important and cool features and fixes) :-)

Well, first off you might already know that we release only on F-Droid. Read about installation here.

SMASH — Release Roundup (v1.8.1 → v1.12.0)

My last release announcement has been version 1.8. Here's what's landed since then, all the way up to the current latest release, v1.12.0.

v1.12.0 (latest)

First and foremost: the new, updated manual is live at www.geopaparazzi.org (once DNS updates), now backed by Read the Docs

Other Features:

• Multiple selection for maps loading
• Notes text enhancements for faster surveying
• Initial monitoring of layer loading for better user interaction
• Measurement tool is now always available, and includes area measures

v1.11.0

Features:

• New log compare view - compare logs from different projects

• Ability to nest logs, creating logical units with interruptions

Bugfixes:

• Fixed GPX layers breaking when using an elevation color table

v1.10.5

Features:

• Tags for logs, for better cataloging and filtering
• GPX layers can now be queried when the description contains key=value pairs
• New "memory enabled" fields — remembered and pre-filled the next time a form opens

Bugfixes:

• Fixed empty GPX layers when set without labels
• Fixed broken properties view for GPX layers
• Fixed note/plog property colors
• Fixed elevation theme rendering on Mapsforge maps (isolines, OpenAndroMaps)

v1.10.3

• PostGIS connection enhancements
• New form widgets: tap counter, wheel, autocomplete combo with URLs
• Memory-enabled forms
• Various bugfixes

v1.10.0

• New fullscreen map view
• Support for multiple device storages
• Expanded translations — Tamil fully translated; Italian, English, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, German, Japanese and others partially translated

v1.9.5

• New project info page with project stats
• Layer list now sorts high-to-low z-order
• Image export to Geopackages is now optional
• Images exported into a project-named folder
• Track log summary overlay can now be disabled (was covering the top-right of the screen)
• Fixed image notes attached at map center
• Fences restored and working again

v1.9.0

• New integrated Formbuilder
• "Where" filter option for GeoPackage databases
• Setting to hide specific tools from the toolbar

v1.8.1

• New geometry types inside forms (polygon, line, point)
• Tile map zoom scaling beyond the max zoom level
• GeoJSON layer support
• Resizable "current log" panel
• Box selection for the info tool
• Length/area now shown in feature info
• URL-based combo boxes in forms

For community and translations read here.

As usual the F-Droid build will take a few days to update the store version. In the meanwhile check out the release page apk.

Cheers!

Shaping the future after 20 years of HydroloGIS

Exactly 20 years ago, Silvia and I started a tiny little company called HydroloGIS. We knew it had to be about creating tools for environmental engineering, and that everything we would do had to be free and open source software and knowledge. And that is what we have been doing for the last 20 years. 10 years ago I wrote a long post about how no one believed we would make it, what we were able to accomplish, and how our drive to continue for another decade was strong.

Today, with a little tear in my eye, I am here to announce that after 20 years, Silvia and I have decided to close down HydroloGIS for good and continue with our freelance consulting positions. This obviously sounds sad and bad, but actually it is not as bad as it sounds. We have always been geospatial experts and the bureaucratic overhead of the company just does not make sense for us anymore. 

In addition, over the years we have developed interests outside of the core business of the company. In addition to geospatial development for engineering, I still enjoy working with Arduino, have a deep love for 3D modeling and printing, laser cutting, and all those nice technical things that allow you to learn something new every week these days.

And as the wind of change blows, another big change comes with the fact that after almost 10 years I am quitting my teaching activities at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano. In fact, I already resigned from one of the courses last year and will give my last exams in Advanced Geomatics next week. I have always been an advocate of learning to code early to shape your mind to problem solving and STEM and I saw how much today's university students miss this and have huge problems to learn it at the age of around 25. On the other hand, I saw how quickly my 6 and 8 year old kids learned it by playing. So probably one thing I will look into (well' I kind of already did) are Coder Dojos.

So what's next? Not much to say. I will be doing much the same as before. 

I will be available at my Giant (or G-Ant or Geo-Antonello if you prefer) website. There you can see what I have done and what I am working on. If you need my services, just drop me an email. Mainly I love to develop on free and open source geospatial and to teach geospatial scripting, be it with geoscript or pyQGIS.

Silvia has not yet decided for her own brand, but will still be available under the HydroloGIS umbrella. Even if the company closes down, we will keep the brand alive to represent the joint projects we are still doing (a lot). She will still be doing hardcore hydrologic-hydraulic modeling and GIS power user projects.

Thanks to all of you who have believed in the noble cause that HydroloGIS has represented all these years. We love you.

SMASH 1.8 is out!

Dear all, it has been a while, but some stuff has been going on in the SMASH community. And we now have a new release. So let's have a look at what is new.

We farewell the play store

It is a while we have additional work to do and are loosing usability in SMASH due to the restrictions imposed by the google store. The most impacting has sure been the fact to not be able to access the phone memory freely. And asking google permission to do so didn't work out, since it seems that only file browsers applications and antivirus need to access the memory freely.

With the help of the F-Droid community (special thanks to IzzySoft, Linsu and Licaon-kter) we have been able to make our second appearance on the f-Droid store. And that is now enough to completely migrate there. So we made a last release of SMASH for the store today, but it will be the last one. Please from now on come and get SMASH from the F-Droid store, where the real open source apps live.

Flutter map

We finally made an upgrade of flutter_map, the map widget library used. This took so long, because the architecture of the library had changed and took some rework inside SMASH.

And now on to the new features:

Geometries inside forms

One nice addition that we have to thank Luca Delucchi and the Digiagriapp for is the possibility to insert inside of complex notes.

 

URL based forms combos

It is now possible to insert in forms URLs to substitute long item lists in comboboxes (dropdown lists). This allows forms to be smaller in case of large amounts of items and also to be more dynamic.

Gejson layer support

Geojson is now one of the supported formats in read and write mode (together with geopackage and postgis). It can be used in combination with sld styling as for the other vector formats.

More efficient toolbar

The toolbar has been redone with more usability in mind.

Editing is done on a sidebar now:

and in the settings it is possible to remove unused buttons:

leads to:

 

 Other tiny things that might be worth telling

• now the default behavior of tile maps is to zoom beyond the max zoom level by scaling (no more white emptiness)
• the current log panel has now 3 sizes for better overlay on map
• the info tool is now a box selection tool and as such way more usable
• online sources have been reworked to have the possibility to add and remove from the default. Also the default maps have been reviewed to ensure they are working
• feature info now also presents the length and area of the geometry as derived value
• we did many many bugfixes

One last thing to add. SMASH 1.8 already presents the possibility to import layers from the new GSS server. This is still in testing mode and ongoing work with the Region Piemonte and not yet disseminated as such. Just to give an idea, it will be possible to generate database tables on the server based on form definitions and download the tables as layers from the GSS and sync them two-ways. Also it will allow for point, line and polygon geometries. All in all it will be an alternative way to take notes, still using the form system and having a way to synchronize data to teh central server instance. But well, this will probably be the next story to tell, once testing is done.

Enjoy!!