Felt has just released a new plugin for the QGIS community: Add to Felt.
QGIS users can now create Felt maps directly from QGIS projects thanks to the new QGIS plugin.
The text of the announcement is rather brief:
A QGIS plugin for Felt: Put your maps on the Web
In the course of our research, we learned just how widespread and powerful the open-source desktop application QGIS is for our users. Felt users regularly combine the analytical power of QGIS with Felt’s sharing and team collaboration features.
Thanks to the new open-source QGIS plugin, expert QGIS users can quickly export their projects to new maps in Felt for easy sharing and collaboration with online colleagues.
QGIS projects are complex, single-computer experiments, often dependent on large file repositories or privileged access to remote data services. Felt now enables these projects to live on the Internet with sharing, team permissions and feedback and response channels.Message from Felt on 21-06-2023Message from Felt on 06-21-2023
As there is currently no documentation on the plugin’s capabilities, we have tested a series of projects to see how far the QGis project export goes.
Access to remote services
XYZ tiles and WMS / WMTS services
EMODnet is an XYZ tile connection. It cannot be loaded into the Felt map. However, we have already integrated this connection into Felt maps, albeit in background form.
We have tested WMS connections, but the message that the layer is not supported is systematic.
WFS services
We’ve tested several WFS sites, both French and American, with different coordinate systems, and we’ve systematically come across an error message:
So, for the time being, don’t count on the plugin to integrate remote connections on the map.
Raster layers
We’ve tried projects containing raster layers in geotiff.
However, this raster can be loaded onto the map using the “Upload anything” tool in Felt maps.
Since these rasters can be manually loaded onto Felt maps, expect the plugin to be quickly corrected to avoid these error messages.
Vector data
No error messages for this data. The data is loaded correctly on Felt. There are a few limitations on symbology.
Since Felt does not recognize .qml files, all non-standard symbols are not recognized and are replaced by simple standard symbology.
Layers with classification are loaded correctly, but the colors of the QGis project are not respected. Although this may seem a minor point, it means that the map rendering in Felt is not the same as in the QGis project, and requires either a manual operation to adapt the Felt map rendering, or adaptation by the user to the new rendering.
A good example is a project to map a wine-growing area, with yellow, pink and burgundy surfaces corresponding to the production zones for white, rosé and red wines. On the Felt map we have orange, beige and green surfaces… And since it’s a classified layer, you can change the palette but not the individual colors of each class.
Conclusions
As we often say, this is a good start. The desire to facilitate the export of QGis projects is there, but the tool still needs to be improved. If the ultimate goal is to be able to export a project’s layers and symbology for easy sharing, then apart from the normal bugs of any new tool, the symbology needs to be improved. QGis was practically redeveloped between versions 2 and 3 precisely to benefit from extremely powerful symbology tools. And QGis users have taken full advantage of these and now use them with ease. Depriving a project of this aspect greatly reduces the value of collaborative sharing.
