Quantum GIS Documentation
Version 1.7.0 Wroclaw
Please read this entire document for important information about this release.
You find a PDF manual of the current version on the QGIS website.

Whats new in Version 1.7.0 'Wrocław'?

This release is named after the town of Wrocław in Poland. The Department of Climatology and Atmosphere Protection, University of Wrocław kindly hosted our last developer meeting in November 2010. Please note that this is a release in our 'cutting edge' release series. As such it contains new features and extends the programmatic interface over QGIS 1.0.x and QGIS 1.6.0. As with any software, there may be bugs and issues that we were not able to fix in time for the release. We therefore recommend that you test this version before rolling it out en-masse to your users.

This release includes over 277 bug fixes and many new features and enhancements. Once again it is impossible to document everything here that has changed so we will just provide a bullet list of key new features here.

Symbology labels and diagrams

New Tools

User interface updates

CRS Handling

Rasters

Providers and Data Handling

Api and Developer Centric

QGIS Mapserver

Plugins

Printing

Whats new in Version 1.6.0 'Capiapó'?

Please note that this is a release in our 'cutting edge' release series. As such it contains new features and extends the programmatic interface over QGIS 1.0.x and QGIS 1.5.0. We recommend that you use this version over previous releases.

This release includes over 177 bug fixes and many new features and enhancements. Once again it is impossible to document everything here that has changed so we will just provide a bullet list of key new features here.

General Improvements

Table of contents (TOC) improvements

Labelling (New generation only)

Layer properties and symbology

Map Composer

Whats new in Version 1.5.0?

Please note that this is a release in our 'cutting edge' release series. As such it contains new features and extends the programmatic interface over QGIS 1.0.x and QGIS 1.4.0. If an unchanging user interface, programmatic API and long term support is more important to you then cool new and untested features, we recommend that you use a copy of QGIS from our Long Term Support (LTS)1.0.x release series. In all other cases we recommend that you use this version.

This release includes over 350 bug fixes, over 40 new features. Once again it is impossible to document everything here that has changed so we will just provide a bullet list of key new features here.

Main GUI

WMS and WMS-C Support

API Updates

Whats new in Version 1.4.0 'Enceladus'?

Please note that this is a release in our 'cutting edge' release series. As such it contains new features and extends the programmatic interface over QGIS 1.0.x and QGIS 1.3.0. If an unchanging user interface, programmatic API and long term support is more important to you then cool new and untested features, we recommend that you use a copy of QGIS from our Long Term Support (LTS)1.0.x release series. In all other cases we recommend that you use this version.

This release includes around 200 bug fixes, nearly 30 new features and has had a lot of love and attention poured in to it to take our favourite desktop GIS application another step on the road to GIS nirvana! So much has happened in the 3 months since our last release that it is impossible to document everything here. Instead we will just highlight a couple of important new features for you.

Probably the biggest new feature is the addition of the new vector symbology infrastructure. This is provided alongside the old implementation - you can switch using a button in the vector layer properties dialog. It does't replace the old symbology implementation completely yet because there are various isues that need to be resolved and a large amount of testinhen it is considered ready.

QGIS now has a field calculator, accessible via a button in the attribute section of the vector properties, and from the attribute table user interface. You can use feature length, feature area, string concatenation and type conversions in the field calculator, as well as field values.

The map composer has had a lot of attention. A grid can now be added to composer maps. Composer maps can now be rotated in the layout. The limitation of a single map layout per project has been removed. A new composer manager dialog has been added to manage the existing composer instances. The composer widget property sheets have been completely overhauled to use less screen space

Various parts of the user interface have been overhauled with the goal of improving consistency and to improve support for netbooks and other smaller screen devices. Loading and saving of shortcuts. Position can now be displayed as Degrees, Minutes, Seconds in the status bar. The add, move and delete vertex buttons are now removed and the node tool is moved from the advanced editing toolbar to the standard editing toolbar. The identification tool has also undergone numerous improvements.

A render caching capability has been added to QGIS. This speeds up common operations such as layer re-ordering, changing symbology, WMS / WFS client, hiding / showing layers and opens the door for future enhancements such as threaded rendering and pre-compositing layer cache manipulation. Note that it is disabled by default, and can be enabled in the options dialog.

User defined SVG search paths are now added to the options dialog.

When creating a new shapefile, you can now specify its CRS. Also the avoid intersections option for polygons is now also possible with background layers.

For power users, you can now create customizable attribute forms using Qt Designer dialog UIs.

Whats new in Version 1.3.0 'Mimas'?

This release includes over 30 bug fixes and several useful new features:

OSM plugin & provider updates:

Other notable features and improvements in this release

Whats new in Version 1.2.0?

This release includes over 140 bug fixes and enhancements over the QGIS 1.1.0 release. In addition we have added the following new features:

Editing:

Editing functionality in QGIS has had a major update in this release. This
includes the addition of new vector editing tools:

- delete part of multipart feature
- delete hole from polygon
- simplify feature
- Added a new "node" tool (in advanced digitizing toolbar).
- New functionality for merging features
- Added undo/redo functionality for vector layer editing.
- Added option to show only markers of selected features in editing mode.
- Change layer's icon in legend to reflext that the layer is editable.

In addition, there are undo/redo actions in Edit menu, in Advanced digitizing toolbar
and there is a new dock widget displaying undo stack of active layer.

About the node tool: It resembles a tool for editing paths by nodes that is
present in every vector editor. How does it work (in QGIS)? Click on a
feature, its nodes will be marked by small rectangles. Clicking and dragging a
node moves it. Double clicking a segment will add a new node. Pressing delete
key will remove active node. It's possible to select more active nodes at
once: by clicking and dragging a rectangle. It's possible to select a segment's
adjacent nodes by clicking on the segment. It's possible to add/remove active
nodes by using Ctrl when clicking a node or dragging a rectangle

We recommend that you turn off vertex markers in QGIS options when working with
this tool: the redraws are much faster and the map is not cluttered with
markers. 

Keyboard shortcuts:

New feature: configure shortcuts for actions within main window of qgis!
See menu Setting->Configure shortcuts

Map Composer:

It is now possible to lock/unlock composer item positions by right mouse click.
The width and height of the composer map will now remain fixed if user sets the
composer map extent to the map canvas extent. possibility to display
current date in composer label by typing (d 'June' yyyy) or similar.
It is now possible to keep the current layers in a composer map even if further
layers are added to the main map. Export to PDF in composer is now possible.

Attribute tables:

It is now possible to search the attribute table within selected records only.
General speedups have been made on the attribute table. Setting of field width
and precision when adding attributes is now possible. Handling of attribute
types in WFS provider has bee improved.

Attribute aliases for vector layers are now available. The aliases are shown
instead of the original field names in the info tool and attribute table to
make things easier for end users. There is now a GUI for setting edit widgets
for layer attributes.  A new dialog allows loading a value map from a layer
(could be non-spatial table too!).  The edit widgets settings will also now
be respected in the attribute table.

Plugins:

- The order of layers in the WMS dialog can now be changed.
- The eVis plugin, version 1.1.0, has been added to the QGIS project and
  included as a standard plugin. More information about eVis can be found here:
  http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/evis/documentation.php .
- The interpolation plugin now has the ability to use line layers as constrains
  for triangulation in interpolation plugin. You can also now save the
  triangulation to shape file.
- An new OpenStreetMap provider and plugin have been added to QGIS.

Projects Management:

QGIS now includes support for  project relative position of file data sources
and svgs. The saving of relative paths of file data sources is optional.

PostGIS & the PostgreSQL Provider:

You can now select the SSL mode when adding a new DB connection. Turning off
SSL encryption can greatly improve performance of PostGIS data loading where
connection security is not required. Support has been added for more native
types and for setting of column comments.

Symbology enhancements:

- allow refresh of symbols via popup menu on the renderer's symbol selection
- add support for data defined symbol(name)s
- add support for font symbol markers (only data defined - no gui yet)
- add symbol size in map units (ie. symbols that keep the size in mapunits
  independent of the mapscale)

Command line arguments:

Added command line argument support on windows.
Enhancement of command line arguments:
- allow given snapshot sizes
- allow suppression of splash screen
- capture map decorations from plugins on snapshots

Grass:

There is a new GRASS shell. Also there have been many cleanups and consistency
updates.

Whats new in Version 1.1.0?

This release includes many bug fixes and enchancements over the QGIS 1.0.0 release. In addition we have added the following new features:

Whats new in Version 1.0.0?

This release includes over 265 bug fixes and enchancements over the QGIS 0.11.0 release. In addition we have added the following new features:
Special Requirements
  • Qt 4.3.0 is required.
  • The Expat XML Parser is required for the GPS plugin. This vastly improves the speed and memory management when loading GPX files.
  • The raster georeferencer plugin requires the GNU Scientfic Library (GSL).
GSL and Expat are optional and required only if you want to use the georeferencer or GPS plugins respectively. SQLite is always required.
Known Issues in this Release
General
OS X Specific
Windows
Reporting Bugs
If think you have found a bug, please consider reporting it to the development team. The steps to report a bug are:
  1. Go to the Bug Tracker at https://svn.qgis.org/trac
  2. Read Using Trac With QGIS to learn about the submission process
  3. Review the list of current issues to make sure your bug has not already been submitted. If it has, review the submission and see if there is anything you can add to the bug report to aid the developers
  4. If your bug has not been reported, create a new ticket, making sure to either login to trac or provide your email address. Tickets lacking contact information are subject to deletion.
User, Installation and Coding Guide
The QGIS manual is the definitive guide to using QGIS including installation and coding instructions (be sure to read this!). A current version of the QGIS manual and translations are provided at http://qgis.osgeo.org/en/documentation/manuals.html. Older versions are available at http://download.osgeo.org/qgis/doc/manual/."