MapGuide RFC 169 - Deprecate DWF-related functionality and services

This page contains a change request (RFC) for the MapGuide Open Source project. More MapGuide RFCs can be found on the RFCs page.

Status

RFC Template Version	(1.0)
Submission Date	10 Jan 2019
Last Modified	10 Jan 2019
Author	Jackie Ng
RFC Status	draft
Implementation Status	pending
Proposed Milestone	3.3
Assigned PSC guide(s)	(when determined)
Voting History	(vote date)
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Overview

This RFC intends to deprecate DWF support in MapGuide for eventual removal in a future release after 3.3

Motivation

A ​recent survey showed that a majority of users do not take advantage of DWF-related support and services in MapGuide.

Coupled with Autodesk backing out of MapGuide development and the technological dead-end of the DWF toolkit and the limited knowledge among remaining developers in maintaining/fixing/enhancing this aspect of MapGuide, there is not much justification to keep this support around.

Proposed Solution

Mark the following classes, methods and members as deprecated:

MgDwfException
MgDwfSectionNotFoundException
MgInvalidDwfPackageException
MgInvalidDwfSectionException
MgDrawingService
MgDwfVersion
MgLayout
MgMappingService::GeneratePlot (all overloads)
MgMappingService::GenerateMultiPlot (all overloads)
MgMappingService::GenerateLegendPlot
MgPrintLayout
MgResourceType::DrawingSource
MgResourceType::SymbolLibrary

Usage of the following resource types is also deprecated:

• Drawing Source
• Drawing Layer Definition section of Layer Definition
• Symbol Library

The resource service currently re-uses DWF Toolkit zip package code for package loading and creation. In order to prepare for eventual removal of DWF support (and the DWF Toolkit) in a future release, the package loading and creating code will be replaced with an alternate zip implementation from the minizip contrib library that is already part of our internal zlib sources.

Implications

The deprecation of DWF support should be a signal to users to look at alternative solutions to existing functionality that DWF provided.

For Symbol Library resources, users should migrate to image Symbol Definition resources.

Test Plan

Ensure package creation and loading are still functional under the replacement minizip implementation.

Funding / Resources

Community