MapInfo Pro Developers User Group

Why do the workspaces saved from the Layout designer default to using 'inches'?

I've set my paper units to 'cm' but every workspace I save from the Layout Designer seems to default to inches.

Is there a setting I've been missing?

Thanks

David

Hi David,

That goes back a long time. Workspaces have always been saved using inches instead of the units defined in the layout.

Notice the size of the other windows also is defined using inches. So it's not just the Layout Designer.

I'm not sure if we ever have discussed actually using the units preferred by the end user?

Hi Peter,

Yes but as inches in the UK were dropped back in the mid 1980's it would be good if we could at some point use the paper units set in the preferences. It's only old guys like me who still remember feet and inches!

You still got Miles, right, David :-)

But yes, I a have also once in a while wished the units were in cm in the Workspace.

I think this calls for a request on the Product Ideas Portal. Will you create it? You find it in the top bar to the right.

So what effect does setting your Paper and Layout? units have? (Under System Settings)

It seems to be just for display purposes.

Now in 64bit you also loose the ruler in the layout designer, so just have the grid.

Yeah, the units are used when you are working in the layout. The units are used when you specify width/height of frames in the layout, the size of the grid and generally speaking all measurements in the Layout.

I'd like to have the ruler back, too

It seems to be the tradition that MIPro uses inches when persisting to the workspace for legacy layout as well as new layouts. I believe the base linear unit constant in MIPro is an inch and all linear units are converted from this initial constant with an appropriate conversion value constant.

Things like positions, widths, heights of all windows are saved in inches regardless of what paper units are set and converted as needed. MIPro reads those values in and they'll be expressed as inches to the public Layout Designer (LD) window API, but then they are converted to WPF Pixels in the LD window itself.

The WPF API generally uses all WPF pixels. Even if it were using metric units being passed to the LD window API, it would still then be converted to the native unit of WPF controls which are WPF pixels.

If MIPro were to start using preferred paper units by the end user for workspace persistence it would need to be done for ALL windows in MIPro, not just the WPF Layout Designer window. That would be a pretty huge undertaking.

As for the ruler in the LD window. The use of guidelines and grids that can be set up to specific grid spacing and snapping to this grid appears to have replaced the need for a ruler. I think there already is a feature request to bring the ruler edge back so it provides a good visual cue where these grids and guidelines exist on the layout.

Kind Regards,

-Bill