Welcome to Boundless Desktop documentation

What is Boundless Desktop?

Boundless Desktop is a fully supported software package prepared by Boundless and available for Windows and Mac OS X platforms. It’s composed of open source geospatial client-side tools and is capable of addressing the most demanding desktop GIS users needs, including spatial analysis, data management, cartography and web publishing.

Boundless Desktop 1.0 is composed of the following set of open source tools:

• QGIS 2.14 by http://www.qgis.org
• Connect plugin for QGIS by Boundless
• PgAdmin 1.22 by http://www.pgadmin.org
• Qt Designer 4.8 for QGIS by http://www.qt.io
• GDAL/OGR 2.1 by http://www.gdal.org

(See Boundless Desktop components section for more details on each component)

Boundless Desktop is also enhanced by a set of Boundless-supported plugins for QGIS, those are aimed at improving QGIS functionality, but also a better integration with the other two Boundless Products: Boundless Suite and Boundless Exchange. (See more in Boundless plugins for QGIS)

Boundless Desktop ecosystem

The central element of our QGIS installation is the Boundless connect plugin, which acts as a single entry point to Boundless technology and content for QGIS. This provides access to Boundless Connect content, which currently includes Boundless-supported plugins.

Boundless Desktop is not composed solely of zeros and ones! It also comes with the deep technical knowledge and immediate readiness of Boundless experts. From product maintenance and day-to-day online support, whatever are your needs, there is a Boundless support plan suited for you (see more about it in following Boundless Connect page).

System requirements

Boundless Desktop should run well on most recent hardware systems. Nevertheless, the performance may vary depending on the data type, data size, and the type of operation/analysis performed. The following system requirements are the minimum and recommended settings for reliable average use.

Note

Currently, Boundless does not provide Boundless Desktop installers for Linux. Read more about it in the Installing Boundless Desktop section.

Windows system requirements

Minimum:

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7 (SP1) or Server 2008 R2
• CPU: Hyperthreaded dual core
• RAM for Desktop: 1 GB
• Screen resolution: 1280x800 at standard dpi
• Screen color depth: 32-bit
• Video RAM for Desktop: 256 MB or higher
• Graphics card: DirectX 9 (OpenGL 2.0)
• Disk space for Desktop (and data): 3 (10) GB

Recommended:

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or higher
• CPU: Quad core or better
• RAM for Desktop: 2 GB or higher
• Screen resolution: 1440x900 or higher at standard dpi
• Screen color depth: 32-bit
• Video RAM for Desktop: 512 MB or higher
• Graphics card: DirectX 11 (OpenGL 3.2) or better
• Disk space for Desktop (and data): 3 (40) GB or higher

Mac system requirements

Minimum:

• Hardware: Apple
• OS: OS X 10.9 Mavericks
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
• RAM for Desktop: 1 GB
• Screen resolution: 1280x800 at standard dpi
• Screen color depth: 32-bit
• Video RAM for Desktop: 256 MB or higher
• Disk space for Desktop (and data): 3 (10) GB

Recommended:

• OS: OS X 10.11 El Capitan
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad, i5 or better
• RAM for Desktop: 2 GB or higher
• Screen resolution: 1440x900 or higher at standard dpi
• Screen color depth: 32-bit
• Video RAM for Desktop: 512 MB or higher
• Disk space for Desktop (and data): 3 (40) GB or higher

Installing Boundless Desktop

Boundless provides packages for Boundless Desktop on both Windows and OS X.

Installing Boundless Desktop on Windows

This section will describe how to install Boundless Desktop on Windows.

Prerequisites

Boundless Desktop can run on any recent hardware/software combination. See Windows system requirements for more details.

Install

To install Boundless Desktop on windows:

1. Double-click the downloaded installer file (Administrator permissions needed). If Windows’ User Account Control asks you permission to allow the app to make changes, click YES.

   

2. In the Welcome screen, click Next.

   

   Welcome screen

3. Read the License Agreement. Then, click I Agree.

   

   License agreement

4. Read the Read Me. Then, click Next.

   

   Read me file

5. Select the Destination folder where you would like to install Boundless Desktop, and click Next.

   

   Destination folder for the installation

6. Select the name and location of the Start Menu folder to be created, and click Next.

   

   Start Menu folder to be created

7. Check the components you would like to install. You can hover the mouse over a component’s name to see a full description of it. Click Next.

   

8. You are ready to install the software. Click Install to start the installation.

   

   Ready to install

9. Please wait while the installation proceeds.

   

   Installation

10. After installation, click Finish.

    

    Boundless Desktop successfully installed

After a successful install, Boundless Desktop components, such as QGIS, can be run from shortcuts in the Start Menu (see Quick start guide for more information).

Installing Boundless Desktop on Mac OS X

This section will describe how to install Boundless Desktop on Mac OS X.

Prerequisites

Boundless Desktop can run on any recent hardware/software combination. See Mac system requirements for more details.

Install

To install Boundless Desktop:

1. Open the provided DMG archive. There will be a single BoundlessDesktop-1.0.0.pkg

   

   Boundless Desktop package

2. Double-click the installer package to launch the installer.

3. At the Welcome screen, click Continue.

   

   Welcome screen

4. Read the Read Me and then click Continue.

   

   Read me file

5. Read the License Agreement and click Continue.

   

   License agreement screen

6. When prompted about the license agreement, click Agree to continue the installation.

   

   License agreement confirmation

7. In the Installation type dialog check the components you would like to install and click Continue.

   

   Installation Type screen

8. You are ready to install the software. Click Install to start the installation.

   

   Installation Type screen

9. When prompted, enter your username and password. Click Install Software to continue.

   

   Insert your administrator username and password

10. Please wait while the installation proceeds.

    

    Installation

11. After installation, click Close.

    

    Boundless Desktop successfully installed

After a successful install, Boundless Desktop components, such as QGIS, can be run from shortcuts in the Applications Folder (see Quick start guide for more information).

Uninstalling Boundless Desktop

Windows

In windows, to uninstall Boundless Desktop 1.0 core apps, libs and utilities and the symbolically linked applications and documentation, use the Uninstall Desktop shortcut available in the Boundless Desktop shortcut folder or from the start menu.

Uninstall Desktop shortcut location

1. Double-click the shortcut to run the uninstaller (administrator permissions are required).

2. In the User Account Control dialog, click YES.

   

3. In the next dialog, press Uninstall to proceed with the uninstallation of Boundless Desktop from your computer.

   

   Boundless Desktop Uninstaller dialog

4. Once the process is finished, click Close to close the uninstaller window.

OS X

In Mac OS X, to uninstall the Boundless Desktop core apps, libs and utilities, and the symbolically linked applications and documentation, use the Uninstall Desktop shortcut available in the Boundless Desktop’s shortcuts folder (:menuselection:`Applications –> Boundless –> Desktop 1.0).

Uninstall Desktop shortcut location

1. Double-click the shortcut to run the uninstaller. Click Uninstall to start the uninstall procedure.

   

   Uninstall Desktop shortcut location

2. Administrator permissions are required. Enter your administrator credentials to proceed with the uninstall.

   

   Entering administrator’s credentials

3. Once the uninstall is finished, a dialog will inform the user about what was removed. Click Quit to close it.

   

   Uninstallation complete

Note

Both in Windows and Mac OS X, all user’s configuration and settings (for example, QGIS settings and plugins) will be preserved for future installations of Boundless Desktop.

Note

Although Boundless does not provides installers for Linux, all open source tools that ship with Boundless Desktop are also available for Linux. Please look for instructions in their communities’ official documentation. The Boundless Desktop components section in this documentation provide a list of links to online resources for each tool, which includes installation instructions.

In that case, for installing Boundless Connect plugin or any other Boundless plugin for QGIS, please consult the Boundless plugins for QGIS section.

Quick start guide

Windows

After installation, a Boundless Desktop shortcut is added for easy access to all the installed tools. Double-click the icon to open the shortcuts folder. Then, double-click any of the icons to launch the respective tools.

Boundless desktop shortcut and folder in windows

The same shortcuts are also added to the start menu in a group called Boundless Desktop 1.0. Click on any of the tools’ icons or names to launch it.

Boundless Desktop shortcuts group in the windows start menu

There is also an Uninstall shortcut to easily remove Boundless Desktop from your computer. Please see Uninstalling Boundless Desktop for more information about uninstalling procedures.

Note

Users should not ‘pin’ the launched apps to the Windows taskbar because the pinned icons will not launch the apps correctly next time.

Mac OS X

After installation, you will find a Boundless icon in the Applications folder.

Boundless icon in Mac OS X Applications folder

Double-clicking the Boundless icon will lead you to a folder with a Desktop 1.0 icon. Double-clicking it will open the Boundless Desktop’s shortcuts folder. In it, double-click any of the icons to launch the respective tool.

Boundless desktop shortcuts folder in Mac OS X

In both Windows and Mac, there’s a handy Licenses shortcut to access the licenses for each individual tool. Please make sure to consult those licenses, including Boundless EULA for Boundless desktop.

There is also a link to Boundless Desktop’s README file, that provide valuable information about it.

For more information on how to use each tool, please see the Boundless Desktop components section.

Boundless Desktop components

Boundless Desktop is composed of several open source geospatial client-side tools. Each tool have it’s own usefulness and facets. In the following section you will find more about each one of them, some quickstarts, and relevant links to their online resources.

QGIS

About

QGIS is the central piece of the Boundless Desktop package installation. The well known leading Open Source GIS for desktop, QGIS, is a cross-platform desktop application for viewing, editing, and analysing geospatial data from a variety of (proprietary and open) vector, raster, and database formats.

QGIS’s development is steered by the QGIS Project, which works with hundreds of volunteers and companies (including Boundless) from all over the world, that helps enhance and maintain QGIS.

For convenience, outside the supported scope of Boundless Desktop, the following processing providers are available for QGIS’s Processing framework:

• SAGA 2.1 by http://www.saga-gis.org
• GRASS 7.0 by http://grass.osgeo.org
• Orfeo Toolbox 5.0 by https://www.orfeo-toolbox.org

Quick start guide

This section aims to give you a brief overview about QGIS. We will mainly focus on QGIS’s graphical user interface (GUI) and some of the most common operations like loading data, managing layers and printing a map. For more detailed information on QGIS usage see the tutorials on our learning centre and/or consult QGIS’s official documentation.

For this Quick start, we will be using the Natural Earth data. Please, download Natural Earth Quickstart Kit and unzip it to any folder that you find convenient to access.

QGIS user interface

1. Use any of the available QGIS’s shortcuts on your computer to open QGIS.

   Note

   When running QGIS for the first time after Boundless Desktop installation, the Boundless Connect plugin’s First Run Wizard will be triggered. We will not cover that process in this page, so please see the Connect plugin’s documentation for instructions on how to proceed or you can just cancel it (you can resume it later).

   By default, the QGIS GUI should resemble the one presented in the next figure.

   

   QGIS Graphical User Interface (GUI)

   As a very basic overview of the default GUI we have:

   • On the top of the screen you will find the menu bar (1). The menu bar provides access to various QGIS features using a standard hierarchical menu.
   • Below it, you will find the main toolbar area (2). Toolbars allow access to most of the same functions as the menus, plus additional tools for interacting with the map. Hold your mouse over the item for a short description of the tool’s purpose. Toolbars can be moved by dragging and dropping them elsewhere and even hidden using View ‣ Toolbars.
   • Another toolbar can be found at the left side of the screen (3). By default, the Manage Layers Toolbar is placed there. This toolbar can be used to load and create data, as we will see later.
   • Next to it, there are two Panels by default: The Browser Panel (4), which is used to browse and load data, and the Layers Panel (5) which is used to toggle layers visibility, setting their relative order, accessing the layer’s properties and much more. Panels can also be moved by drag and drop, or even hidden using View –> Panels.
   • To the right and middle of the screen, you find the map canvas (6) where all visible layers’ geometries will be displayed.
   • At the bottom of the screen you will find the status bar (7) with several useful information and controls for the current map scale, the mouse pointer coordinates, the current Coordinate Reference System’s EPSG code in use, and more.

Loading data

In QGIS, to load data, you can either use the Browser Panel, the Manage Layers Panel or even use your operating system file explorer.

1. Using the Browser Panel, browse to the sample data location, more precisely into the Natural_Earth_quick_start\10m_physical folder. Double-click the folder’s names or click the plus signs next to it to view its contents. Find the ne_10m_coastline.shp shapefile and drag and drop it from the browser to the map canvas. It will load the vector layer.

   

   Loading a layer using the Browser Panel

   The layer should now be visible on the map canvas, using a random style. It should also be visible in the Layers Panel list.

   

   Successfully loaded layer

2. Let’s open another file, this time using the Manage Layers toolbar buttons. Notice that there is one button for each type of dataset, so we should select the most suitable one. Click on the Add Raster Layer. Then, navigate ito the forlder Natural_Earth_quick_start\50m_raster\NE1_50M_SR_W, select the NE1_50M_SR_W.tif file and click Open.

   

   Loading a layer using Add Raster Layer

3. Finally, let’s open an ESRI fileGeodatabase, just because it has a small catch. In the guilabel:Manage Layers toolbar click the Add Vector Layer. In the next dialog, under Source type check the Directory option. Then, making sure that Type is set to ESRI FileGDB, use the Browse button to navigate and select the Natural_Earth_quick_start\10m_cultural\ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces_geodb.gdb folder. Click choose. Finally, back in the dialog window, click Open to load the layer.

   

   Loading an ESRI FileGeodataBase layer using Add Vector Layer

4. Feel free to add any other data, but bare in mind that you can load several files at once by holding the Ctrl key during file selection in any of the two described methods. Also, you can drag and drop files from your operating system’s file manager (Windows Explorer in Windows or Finder in Mac OS X) into QGIS Map canvas to load them.

Navigating in the map canvas

To navigate the map canvas you can primarily use your mouse wheel. For more precise control over the map canvas, you can also use the Map Navigation Toolbar tools.

1. Position your mouse pointer in an area you that you want to have a closer look, and spin your mouse wheel up to Zoom In. Spin the mouse wheel in the opposite direction to Zoom Out.

2. To pan, just press the mouse wheel down and hold it, move the pointer around and release the wheel once satisfied.

3. As stated above, the Map Navigation Toolbar provides more precise ways to navigate the map.

   Press the Zoom Full button to show the full extent of your data. Now select the Zoom In tool and draw a rectangle around an area of interest using by clicking and dragging the left-mouse-button on the map canvas.

   

   Loading an ESRI FileGeodataBase layer using Add Vector Layer

4. Notice you can use the Zoom last and Zoom last to undo and redo changes to the map canvas extent

Managing Layers

We have been using the Layers Panel already, but let’s have a deeper look into it’s potential.

1. Select a layer by clicking on its name on the layers list/legend. The layer will become the active layer, meaning that many layer specific tools and actions will apply to that layer in particular. For example, select the ne_10_coastline layer and, in the Map Navigation Toolbar, click the Zoom to Layer button. This will zoom the map canvas to the full extent of a particular layer.

   

   Layer active in the Layers Panel

2. You can change the order of the layers (and consequently their rendering order) by dragging them up and down in the Layers. Do this making sure to put the raster layer at the bottom, the polygons layer above it, and the line layer at the top.

   

   Changing the order of the layers

3. You can change the visibility status of the layers by (un)checking the small checkbox next to its name. Give it a try and see the result in the map canvas. (Make sure to keep all layers visible in the end)

   

   Changing the layers’ visibility

4. By double-clicking the layer name in the Layers Panel, or right-clicking and selecting properties, you will open the layer’s properties. Double-click the ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces layer, navigate to the Style tab. There you can change how the layer will be displayed in the map. Click the Simple fill in the symbols layers list, and in the Fill Fill type select No brush. Press Ok to apply the changes and close the properties dialog.

   

   Changing the layers’ style in the properties dialog

   At this time you might want to save your project.

5. Go to Project ‣ Save or hit Ctrl+S. Choose the destination folder where your project will be saved, type in a sugestive name and click Save.

Exploring data’s attributes

To make proper use of the dataset, one should know its attributes. Let’s see how to retrieve the attributes of our layers.

1. Make sure the ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces layer is still active and in the Attributes toolbar (if not visible, go to View ‣ Toolbars), select the Identify tool. Then, click the map over one of the geometries of the layer. The Identify Results Panel will show up, where you can see the feature’s fields and respective values. (You may need to expand the panel a bit to see it all).

   

   Seeing layer’s attributes using the identify tool in a feature

2. You can also see all attributes of your layer in its attributes table. Having the ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces layer selected, click the Open Attributes table in the Attributes toolbar (or right-click the layer’s name in the Layers Panel and choose Open Attribute Table ). The layer’s attribute table will show up.

   

   Seeing layer’s full attributes using the attribute table

3. In the attribute table, use the mouse wheel to quickly scroll up and down the attributes, or the scroll bar to move horizontally.

4. Select one feature by clicking its id number at the left side of the feature’s row of attributes. Then, use the Zoom to Selected Rows tool at the top of the attribute table to zoom the map to that particular layer.

   

   Selecting a row in the attribute table and zooming to it’s feature

5. Repeat step 4 selecting several rows by holding the Ctrl key while clicking the id numbers. In the end, make sure to deselect all features using the Deselect All button in the attribute table.

Add simple labels

Now that we already know our data attributes, let’s use one as a label for our geometries.

1. Go back to the ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces properties menu by double-clicking its name in the Layers panel. Go to the Labels tab, and select Show labels for this layer. Then, in the Label with combobox select the abbrev field. Press Ok to apply the changes, close the properties dialog and see how it looks.

   

   Layer’s properties Label tab

Print a simple map

Now let’s see how to print a very simple map with the layers that we have loaded. In QGIS, you can have as many map layouts (a.k.a. print compositions) as you like, and you can manage them in the Print Composer Manager.

1. Once you are satisfied with the map’s looks, click the New Print Composer button in the File toolbar, type a representative name for the composer and click Ok.

   

   Creating a new composer and choosing a name

2. The print composer will open with an empty page. To add a map item, click the Add Map in the Toolbox toolbar and draw a rectangle covering most of the page by clicking and dragging over it. The map content should appear.

   

   Adding a map item to the print composer page

3. You can adjust the map item position and size by clicking and dragging the corner and side handles.

4. You can also adjust the map extent using the Move item content tool. While this tool is selected, you can pan the map content clicking and dragging inside of it, and change its scale using the mouse wheel. More precise controls to set the map item position, size, scale and extent can be found in the Item properties tab/panel.

   

   Adjusting map item’s scale and extent

5. Now that we are satisfied with our very minimalist map, let’s export it. In the Composer toolbar, click Export to PDF. Choose a location and name for your PDF file and click Ok.

Obviously, we could do more complex maps by adding other items like legends, labels and images. Please see our learning centre to learn how to work with them. Also, if you have interessed, have a look into this QGIS Map Gallery.

QGIS Browser

Alongside with QGIS you will find QGIS Browser, another QGIS standalone application in the Boundless Desktop folder. QGIS Browser can be used to browse the datasets quickly on your local computer, network or remote services. You can see its metadata, preview its geometries and see the attribute table.

Standalone QGIS browser GUI

Online resources

• Official Site: http://www.qgis.org
• Documentation: http://docs.qgis.org/2.14/en/docs/index.html
• Official Plugins Repository: http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/

pgAdmin

About

pgAdmin is a feature rich Open Source administration and development platform for PostgreSQL, the most advanced Open Source database in the world, which includes, among others, the Postgis spatial extention.

pgAdmin is developed by a community of PostgreSQL experts around the world and is available in more than a dozen languages. It is Free Software released under the PostgreSQL License.

pgAdmin is aimed to answer the needs of all users, from writing simple SQL queries to developing complex databases. The graphical interface supports all PostgreSQL features and makes its administration easy. The application includes, among other things: syntax highlighting SQL editor, a server-side code editor, an SQL/batch/shell job scheduling agent, and much more. See more about it in the official website.

Quick start guide

Note

To execute this Quick Start Guide you will need a running instance of PostgreSQL database with the spatial extension PostGIS installed, please ask your system administrator for the connection parameters. For further information about PostgreSQL or PostGIS see Online resources.

The following quick start guide will introduce you to pgAdmin basics. It will show how to access to a spatially enabled database and run some simple queries on its tables.

1. Download the data for this tutorial here and unzip it anywhere you think it’s convenient.

2. Import the geodata from the shapefile into the database, if you have shp2pgsql command line utility at hand you can import the data with:

   shp2pgsql events.shp | psql -U postgres pg_test
   

   If you don’t have this command available you can still use QGIS db manager to import you data into the database.

3. Open pgAdmin using any of the available shortcuts in your computer.

   By default, pgAdmin will show the following window on opening:

   

4. Click on the Add a connection to a server (the “plug” icon) to create a new database connection.

5. Enter the connection parameters in the dialog, a database connection is usually identified by:

   • host
   • port
   • username
   • password
   

6. Click on the newly added server to open its features tree and select the events table or any other table you want to query

   

7. Perform operations on selected tables with Right-Click

   

8. Preview data with View Data ‣ View Top 100 Rows

   
   

9. Click on the SQL icon

   

10. Execute a spatial query:

    SELECT name, St_AsText( geom ) FROM events;
    

    

Online resources

• Official Site: https://www.pgadmin.org/
• Documentation: https://www.pgadmin.org/docs/1.22/index.html
• PostgreSQL https://www.postgresql.org
• PostGIS http://postgis.net

Qt Designer

About

Qt Designer is a Qt’s Framework tool for designing and building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) from Qt components. With it, you can compose and customise widgets or dialogs in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) manner, and also test them using different styles and resolutions.

The reason why Boundless Desktop includes Qt Designer is because it’s extremely useful to create QGIS plugins’ interface dialogs, but also to create highly customised feature forms for editing vector layers’ attributes in QGIS projects. With that in mind, the shipped version brings a set of very convenient special widgets for QGIS (as an example, a combobox with all project’s loaded layers).

Qt Designer is created by the same team that delivers the Qt Framework. See more information about it in Qt official website

Quick start guide

The following quick start guide will introduce you to Qt Designer basics. It will show how to create a simple custom feature form for a vector layer in QGIS.

1. Download the data for this tutorial here. Unzip it to whatever folder you think is most convenient.

2. Open Qt Designer using any of the available shortcuts in your computer.

   By default, Qt Designer will show the New Form dialog on opening.

3. Choose Dialog with Buttons Bottom from the template\forms list and press Create.

   

   New form dialog window

4. Have a quick look into the Qt Designer‘s graphical user interface (GUI):

   
   • In the middle of the screen, you will find the recently created new dialog, a blank form with only a pair of ok-cancel buttons (1).
   • On the right-hand side of the screen you will find the Widget box which lists all available widgets (2). This list can be used to insert widgets by simply dragging and dropping them on top of the dialog.
   • In the left-hand side (among others) there’s the Property Editor (3), that can be used to edit the properties of the dialog itself or of each inserted widgets.
   • Finally, in the top, near the menus, you will find the Forms toolbar(4), which we will use to impose some alignment layout for consistency purposes.

   Note

   In Mac OS X, Qt Designer starts up in Multiple Top-Level Windows mode by default, looking very different from what is presented above. To change it, you should go to Designer ‣ Preferences... and choose Docked Window in the User Interface Mode.

   To see what widgets we want to use on the new form, we will need to inspect the data’s attributes and the layer’s current feature form.

5. Open QGIS by using any of the available shortcuts in your computer.

6. Click the Add Vector layers button in the Manage layers Toolbar (or use the Layer ‣ Add Layer ‣ Add Vector Layer...) to browse to the events.shp shapefile location. (see QGIS Quick start guide if you need help with this task)

   

7. Right-click the recently loaded layer’s name in the Layers panel and choose the option Open attribute table. Then, take some time noticing the layer’s field names and types.

   

8. Let’s now have a look at the layer’s current feature form. Go back to QGIS main window, select the events layer and click Toggle editing in the digitising toolbar (if not visible check View ‣ Toolbars ‣ Digitizing toolbar). In the same toolbar, select the Add Feature tool and click anywhere in the map canvas to add a new point to your layer. This step should insert a point in the map canvas and show the default layer’s feature form. Take some time analysing the feature form and then press Cancel to discard any changes.

   

   Let’s go back to Qt Designer and add the necessary widgets for the first field: name.

9. We will start by adding a text label to our form. Scroll down the Widget box to locate the Label widget in the Display widgets group. Now, drag and drop it on the form. You can change the label’s text either by double-clicking label itself and typing or using the Property Editor, more precisely at the Text property. Set the value to Event's name. If necessary, expand the label box using the small squares in its border.

   

10. Now let’s add an input widget for the name field. This time, instead of scrolling down the Widget box to locate the widget, try typing line edit on the filter bar at the top of it. Drag and drop a Line edit widget to be right below of the label.

    

11. Repeat steps 7 and 8, for the venue field (or just select both existing widgets pressing the Ctrl key, and copy (Ctrl+c) and paste (Ctrl+v). Use Event's venue for the label, and put both Label and Line edit widgets below the other two.

12. Finally, let’s add some special QGIS input widgets and respective labels to control the date fields. Using any of the two options described in steps 7 and 8, find and insert two QgsDateTimeEdit widgets. Put them side by side, and above them add the labels Start date and End date. Your form should look similar to the one in the following figure:

    

To connect this dialog’s input widgets to the QGIS layer’s fields, we need to set their objectName property’s value with the same name as the target field. As you will see, this can be done in several different ways.

1. Select the Name of event Line edit and in the Property Editor set the value of the objectName property to name.

2. Right-click the Venue of the event Line edit, and choose Change objectName. Set the value to have the name of the second field: venue.

3. For QgsDateTimeEdit widgets simply use the Object Inspector located above the Property Editor. Double-click on their current names and change them to start_date and end_date

   By now, all your input widgets should have the name of the corresponding fields, and in the Object Inspector you should have something similar to the next figure.

   

   We are almost finished. All we need to do now is align all widgets so that they look good together. For that, we will use a grid layout.

4. Right-click anywhere on the dialog’s empty space (this will switch any focus over the widgets to the dialog instead) and choose layout ‣ Layout in a grid (or use the toolbar). After that, all widgets should be aligned according to their relative place to each others.

   

   After you have applied the grid layout, you can now resize the form to make it more compact, by click and move the bottom-left-corner of the form.

   

5. Finally, using File ‣ Save as.. let’s save the form using a suggestive name, for instance events_form.ui. For easy discovery, save it in the same folder that the data is located.

   Now, let’s go back to QGIS and test the feature form in action.

6. In QGIS, right-click the layer’s name in the Layers panel and choose Properties. Go to the Fields tab and in the Attribute editor layout select the Provide ui-file option. Then, in the Edit UI browse to the events_form.ui location. Finally, press Ok to apply the changes and close the layer’s properties dialog.

   

7. Assuming that the events layer is still in editing mode, let’s use the Add feature again to create a new point in the map canvas. This time, it should open the customised feature form created in Qt designer with all its widgets.

   

   To finish our feature form, let’s make a small fix in the date fields otherwise the values won’t be saved in the table because of the use of different date formats in Qt form and QGIS.

8. Back in Qt Designer, select the two QgsDateTimeEdit widgets (Hold the Ctrl key while clicking) and, in the Properties Editor set the Display format value to yyyy-M-dd and check the calendarPopup property. The changes will be applied on both widgets. Save the form again.

   

9. Back in QGIS, go to the fields tab in the Properties menu and for each date field change the widget to date/time. Make sure to use the same date format value in the Widget display as the one used in the form (yyyy-MM-dd). Also select the calendar popup and allow NULL options. Press Ok when you have finished.

   

10. Now, repeat step #17 to see the feature form changes take effect. The date values should be represented differently and a new icon will alow to choose the date from a popup calendar. Besides, saving the input to the table will now work fine.

    

A lot more form customizations can be done using Qt Designer. You can use many different widgets, organise the widgets in groups or tabs, and you can even add some Python logic to make your forms responsive.

Online resources

• Official Site: http://www.qt.io
• Documentation: http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/designer-manual.html

GDAL/OGR

About

Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL/OGR) is a cross-platform C++ translator library for raster and vector geospatial data formats that is released under an X/MIT style Open Source license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As a library, it presents a single abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats. It also comes with a variety of useful command line utilities for data translation and processing. GDAL supports over 50 raster formats, and OGR over 20 vector formats.

In Boundless Desktop installation, GDAL/OGR utilities are available through QGIS or the installed Command Shell. The shipped version of GDAL/OGR includes two extra libraries, LibKML and OpenJPEG2, for .kmz and JPEG2000 support, respectively.

Quick start guide

GDAL/OGR is a suite of command line programs that can be launched through the Command Shell. Command Shell can be found in the Boundless Desktop folder.

1. Download the data for this quick start here and unzip it anywhere you think it’s convenient.

2. Open Command Shell using any of the available shortcuts in your computer.

3. If you are on Windows, you will immediately see the list of available commands. To list them again, type o-help and press Enter. To print the list of available commands on Mac, type list-cmds and press Enter.

4. To execute a GDAL/OGR command, type its name an press enter. If executed without arguments GDAL/OGR commands normally print a short help text that can also be accessed with –help option, for example:

   gdalinfo --help
   

   

5. To print all information on the shapefile events.shp contained in the sample data, navigate to the location of the unzipped quick start data and run the following:

   ogrinfo -al events.shp
   

   The output of the command is:

   INFO: Open of `events.shp'
         using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.
   
   Layer name: events
   Geometry: Point
   Feature Count: 1
   Extent: (7.123115, 50.718396) - (7.123115, 50.718396)
   Layer SRS WKT:
   GEOGCS["GCS_WGS_1984",
       DATUM["WGS_1984",
           SPHEROID["WGS_84",6378137,298.257223563]],
       PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
       UNIT["Degree",0.017453292519943295]]
   name: String (80.0)
   venue: String (80.0)
   start_date: Date (10.0)
   end_date: Date (10.0)
   OGRFeature(events):0
     name (String) = FOSS4G 2016
     venue (String) = World Conference Center Bonn
     start_date (Date) = 2016/08/21
     end_date (Date) = 2016/08/26
     POINT (7.12311523114681 50.718396029588526)
   

6. To convert the shapefile events.shp to a different coordinate reference system (UTM 33N) and save it to a different format (MapInfo) you can use ogr2ogr:

   ogr2ogr -t_srs EPSG:32633 -f "MapInfo File" events_32633.tab events.shp
   

7. To check the transformed data you can use ogrinfo:

   ogrinfo -al events_32633.tab
   

   The output of the command is:

   Had to open data source read-only.
   INFO: Open of `events_32633.tab'
         using driver `MapInfo File' successful.
   
   Layer name: events_32633
   Geometry: Point
   Feature Count: 1
   Extent: (-55706.115697, 5648162.052998) - (-55706.115697, 5648162.052998)
   Layer SRS WKT:
   PROJCS["unnamed",
       GEOGCS["unnamed",
           DATUM["WGS_1984",
               SPHEROID["WGS 84",6378137,298.257223563],
               TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0]],
           PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],
           UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433]],
       PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],
       PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],
       PARAMETER["central_meridian",15],
       PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],
       PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],
       PARAMETER["false_northing",0],
       UNIT["Meter",1.0]]
   name: String (80.0)
   venue: String (80.0)
   start_date: Date (10.0)
   end_date: Date (10.0)
   OGRFeature(events_32633):1
     name (String) = FOSS4G 2016
     venue (String) = World Conference Center Bonn
     start_date (Date) = 2016/08/21
     end_date (Date) = 2016/08/26
     Style = SYMBOL(a:0,c:#000000,s:12pt,id:"mapinfo-sym-35,ogr-sym-10")
     POINT (-55706.115697181601718 5648162.052997644990683)
   

Online resources

• Official Site: http://www.gdal.org/
• GDAL Raster Utilities: http://www.gdal.org/gdal_utilities.html
• OGR Vector Utilities: http://www.gdal.org/ogr_utilities.html

Python interpreter

A full Python interpreter install is embedded within Boundless Desktop. Desktop does not use any Python interpreter or modules that you have installed on your system.

To manage packages available to the embedded Python install, open the included Command Shell application (as an administrator) and use pip:

pip --help

Please see pip documentation for more details.

Pre-installed Packages

The IPython and Jupyter packages are installed with Desktop. This allows for easy installation of the IPyConsole plugin for QGIS, an excellent additional console to QGIS’s embedded Python console.

Know issues

IPython and Jupyter consoles on Windows

When using the Command Shell application, the following commands will produce errors:

• ipython
• jupyter-console

Alternatively, until a fix is provided, you can run these commands:

• ipython --simple-prompt
• jupyter-qtconsole (when run from a graphical user interface login)

Plugins

Boundless Desktop’s functionality can be remarkably extended by the use of plugins for QGIS.

Boundless plugins for QGIS

QGIS for Boundless Desktop includes all the core plugins of a standard QGIS installation, plus the Boundless Connect plugin.

Boundless Connect plugin, among other things, is responsible for setting up Boundless QGIS Plugin Repository, allowing user login, and can be used to find and install Boundless plugins (see more about it in Boundless Connect plugin documentation).

The following list comprises the currently available Boundless plugins for QGIS with links to their official documentation.

• Boundless Connect
• Geoserver Explorer
• Lessons
• MGRS tools
• MIL-STD2525
• Web App Builder
• What3words

Boundless QGIS Plugin Repository

QGIS’s functionality can be remarkably extended by the use of plugins.

This is the QGIS plugin repository for Boundless plugins that are not in the official QGIS repository.

Using the repository in QGIS

If you are using Boundless Desktop, this repository should be already available in its QGIS along with the Boundless Connect plugin. Otherwise, if you are using QGIS from one of the community’s installers, you can setup this repository in the Plugin manager by going to Plugins ‣ Manage and install plugins and, in the Settings tab, add a new repository with the following URL:

• https://qgis.boundlessgeo.com/plugins/plugins.xml

Adding Boundless QGIS plugin repository

Note

You may wish to check Show also experimental plugins as well as Show also deprecated plugins options. The latter is required to install the updated, though deprecated, version of the OpenGeo Explorer plugin.

Warning

On Windows operating systems, while trying to connect to the repository, it’s possible that you get a Unable To Get Local Issuer Certificate error message, and you won’t be able to access the repository. To solve the issue, try using your browser (Chrome, Edge or Internet Explorer) to open the repository’s URL. This operation should add the needed certificate to your Windows system.

Browsing the repository

• Available plugins
• Archives of released versions

Beta Repository

If you have signed up for access to the Beta Plugin Repository, you must set it up to be able to download and install the latest beta versions of our plugins.

To set the BETA repository, follow the instructions above giving the repository another name (e.g. Boundless Plugin Beta Repository) and using the following URL:

• https://qgis-beta.boundlessgeo.com/plugins/plugins.xml

Looking for something else?

• Boundless plugins in the official QGIS plugin repository
• Boundless Plugins documentation
• Older OpenGeo Explorer documentation

Warning

OpenGeo Explorer is deprecated and users are recommended to migrate to the new GeoServer Explorer plugin.