Ideas for improvement

My notes

Picture from Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke on Pixabay

Here I will note my ideas around WFS Reader, XML Filter Expressions et cetera.

When finished, I'll place an idea on FME ideas.

If you have any comments or something to add, please let me know!

WFS connection - URL: add recent/most used/favorites

When you come to office and start your work opening a fresh FME Workbench, the URL parameter is allways empty. FME forgets, what you did in the past (without a Workbench file opened).

There's no history, recent function or something that remembers, what you did last time. Therefore you have to copy your WFS URL from another source.

Idea

Please implement some kind of history similar to the history we find in bash or zsh. Those who use the Terminal in macOS or on Linux know how it works. Open the commandline and use arrow up/down to scroll through the history of commands.

In FME this could work as follows:

• click (maybe in combination with a magic key like Strg, Cmd) in URL text box

• use arrow up/down to scroll through URL history

• maybe the mouse wheel could also be used to scroll

• if the right URL is found double click or press return to choose it

In ideal circumstances the history comes with different modes like

1. recently used, ordered descending (latest first)

2. most used, ordered descending (often first)

3. favorites, ordered alphabetically (A to Z)

Add a SQLite database (or anything that's actually hot) in users FME path (C:\Users\xxx\Documents\FME\) and persist the WFS URLs used, e.g.

URL	Wfs_version	Name	Date_last_used	Count_used
https://www.wfs.nrw.de/geobasis/wfs_nw_inspire-flurstuecke_alkis?	2.0	ALKIS Flurstücke NRW	2023-09-07T13:10:30.362Z	10
https://www.wfs.nrw.de/wfs/strassen_nrw?	1.1.0	NRW Strassen	2023-09-08T13:14:02.953Z	3

I'm not a GUI specialist, therefore the folks at Safe will know better, but as a hint:

The preference (either recent or most) should be configured in FME Options.

At this point: I'm really a feared "alignment nerd" but why is the URL text box so small?

Just for the alignment?

WFS connection - Version: use latest supported version

Opening a WFS reader, the preset for [WFS Version] is 1.1.0.

That's ok so far.

But from the time when you define the WFS URL and FME connects to the WFS it should be possible to fetch the latest/highest version from WFS Capabilities:

<ows:Parameter name="version">
   <ows:AllowedValues>
      <ows:Value>2.0.0</ows:Value>
   </ows:AllowedValues>
</ows:Parameter>

Idea

If so, please switch [WFS Version] to highest supported version automatically.

This also applies to the Coordinate System:

Please set [Coordinate System] from <not set> to WFS DefaultCRS of selected Feature Type(s) automatically (if unique).

Filter Expression Editor/Assistant

t.b.c.