QGIS » Quantum GIS Desktop

Our plugins menu is cluttered already and some of the plugins would be better suited to being implemented as core functionality (e.g. scalebar, north arrow etc. For a long time I have wanted to implement the idea of mapwidgets - small widgets that can be dragged and arbitrarily placed on the map. Marco's mapannotation tools actually take us towards that idea nicely so I thought I would start reimplementing some decorations as subclasses of QgsMapAnnotation to get a feel of how suitable the api would be for generic widget api.

I'm attaching my first proof of concept for this (warning its still rough around the edges) which implements the scalebar as a widget. My idea to build out the widgets list at the upcoming hackfest in Wroclaw, Poland.

Also we should give some thought to making the implementation more generic (e.g. a special type of plugin?) so that it is not needed to do so many changes to app and gui for each new widget type.

I welcome comments and suggestions and will update the patch (with aim including in 1.6 if I can get it all polished nicely).

Tim