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QField 3.7 ā€œHaida Gwaiiā€: Polishing a great experience

For QField 3.7, we opted for a shorter development cycle that focused on polishing preexisting functionalities from feature form editor widgets improvement through to better nearby Bluetooth device discovery. Of course, we couldn’t help ourselves and still packed in some nice functionality that we thought deserved to reach QField’s growing community as soon as possible.

Main highlights

One of the most interesting new functionalities from this development cycle has been the ability to stamp details on photos taken by QField’s in-app camera. A basic version of this has been supported for a while now;Ā this new version offers flexible customisation of details stamping onto photos,Ā including changing the font size, colour, and horizontal position, as well as providing users with the ability to completely change the details via expression-driven templates and add image overlays onto the photo.

The custom details stamping configuration lives within project files, allowing for individual projects to drive styling and details. The configuration interface is provided by QFieldSync and can be found in the project properties dialog by switching to the QField panel when setting up projects in QGIS:

The other significant addition in this release isĀ the new plugin manager’s Available Plugins tab, which offers a curated list of pluginsĀ that can easily be installed with a single tap. The list makes it much easier to discover plugin-delivered functionalities such as online routing, geocoding searches, and much more.

The plugin manager can also alert users of available updates for their installed plugins, ensuring that crucial bug fixes and improvements are easily delivered. When a new version is released, users can update via a single tap. We are looking into the possibility of enabling automated plugin upgrades soon.

Long-time users of QField are probably aware of a nifty feature that allowed individual project layers to be locked, and for that lock to be driven by a data-defined property expression. For this new version, we’ve supercharged the layer lock functionality by breaking it down into four distinct vector layer permissions that can be disabled: i) feature addition, ii) attribute editing, iii) geometry editing, and iv) feature deletion. These permissions can be disabled by activating a checkbox or conditionality turned on via a data-defined property expression.

The disabling of permissions using a data-defined property expression allows for interesting scenarios when paired with QField-driven expression context variables such as the user name of a logged-in QFieldCloud account (@cloud_username), GNSS positioning (@gnss_coordinate) and more. Users can easily restrict permissions based on the user interacting with a cloud project, or form advanced geofencing-like rules based on location, time of the day, etc. For more details on available variables, read this page on QField’s growing documentation site.

Improvements all around

As mentioned above, this version focused on polishing preexisting functionality. Noteworthy improvements include:

  • support for multiple column display as well as the ability to filter value relation lists;
  • support for reversing the sorting order of the relationship editor’s children lists;
  • smoother scanning process to discover nearby Bluetooth devices when adding external GNSS devices; and
  • support for feature identification against vector tile layers (give that a try with the new OpenStreetMap shortbread vector tiles!).

Finally, life for QFieldCloud users has improved with theĀ support for resuming large file downloads when fetching a cloud project,Ā eliminating the need to restart from scratch after an interruption due to poor connectivity. In addition, users will notice a new notification badge on the top-left main menu button, indicating that a cloud project has pending changes ready to be pushed to the server.

We hope you enjoy this new version as much as we do delivering it to you. Happy field mapping!

Learn More

QField 3.7 ā€œHaida Gwaiiā€: Polishing a great experience

For QField 3.7, we opted for a shorter development cycle that focused on polishing preexisting functionalities from feature form editor widgets improvement through to better nearby Bluetooth device discovery. Of course, we couldn’t help ourselves and still packed in some nice functionality that we thought deserved to reach QField’s growing community as soon as possible.

Main highlights

One of the most interesting new functionalities from this development cycle has been the ability to stamp details on photos taken by QField’s in-app camera. A basic version of this has been supported for a while now;Ā this new version offers flexible customisation of details stamping onto photos,Ā including changing the font size, colour, and horizontal position, as well as providing users with the ability to completely change the details via expression-driven templates and add image overlays onto the photo.

The custom details stamping configuration lives within project files, allowing for individual projects to drive styling and details. The configuration interface is provided by QFieldSync and can be found in the project properties dialog by switching to the QField panel when setting up projects in QGIS:

The other significant addition in this release isĀ the new plugin manager’s Available Plugins tab, which offers a curated list of pluginsĀ that can easily be installed with a single tap. The list makes it much easier to discover plugin-delivered functionalities such as online routing, geocoding searches, and much more.

The plugin manager can also alert users of available updates for their installed plugins, ensuring that crucial bug fixes and improvements are easily delivered. When a new version is released, users can update via a single tap. We are looking into the possibility of enabling automated plugin upgrades soon.

Long-time users of QField are probably aware of a nifty feature that allowed individual project layers to be locked, and for that lock to be driven by a data-defined property expression. For this new version, we’ve supercharged the layer lock functionality by breaking it down into four distinct vector layer permissions that can be disabled: i) feature addition, ii) attribute editing, iii) geometry editing, and iv) feature deletion. These permissions can be disabled by activating a checkbox or conditionality turned on via a data-defined property expression.

The disabling of permissions using a data-defined property expression allows for interesting scenarios when paired with QField-driven expression context variables such as the user name of a logged-in QFieldCloud account (@cloud_username), GNSS positioning (@gnss_coordinate) and more. Users can easily restrict permissions based on the user interacting with a cloud project, or form advanced geofencing-like rules based on location, time of the day, etc. For more details on available variables, read this page on QField’s growing documentation site .

Improvements all around

As mentioned above, this version focused on polishing preexisting functionality. Noteworthy improvements include:

  • support for multiple column display as well as the ability to filter value relation lists;
  • support for reversing the sorting order of the relationship editor’s children lists;
  • smoother scanning process to discover nearby Bluetooth devices when adding external GNSS devices; and
  • support for feature identification against vector tile layers (give that a try with the new OpenStreetMap shortbread vector tiles!).

Finally, life for QFieldCloud users has improved with theĀ support for resuming large file downloads when fetching a cloud project,Ā eliminating the need to restart from scratch after an interruption due to poor connectivity. In addition, users will notice a new notification badge on the top-left main menu button, indicating that a cloud project has pending changes ready to be pushed to the server.

We hope you enjoy this new version as much as we do delivering it to you. Happy field mapping!

Learn More

[Case Study] Monitoring historic buildings in Derbyshire

Discover how the Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust uses Mergin Maps and volunteers to survey and protect Grade 2 listed buildings at risk in the UK.
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Crowdfunding Campaign Completed: QGIS 3D for Open Source Digital Twins

The QGIS community has successfully funded the 3D Digital Twins project—thank you for your support! Development begins soon, with updates to follow.
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[Blog] Mergin Maps gets sketchy

Draw free-hand notes on your maps with Mergin Maps' new sketching feature—easy to enable, fun to use, and now available in the mobile app.
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How to Change Point Styles in QGIS - QGIS LAB by MIERUNE

Introduction When you load a layer that contains points into QGIS, it shows them as round markers in a random color by default. Changing the markers to suit the data makes a map easier to read and und...
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How to Install Older Versions of QGIS - QGIS LAB by MIERUNE

Introduction QGIS keeps evolving, and regular updates continually improve its features. In real work, however, you cannot always use the latest version. If a plugin you use in a specific project does ...
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[Replay] Webinar “Security Project for QGIS”

Do you deal with sensitive geospatial data ? Are you concerned by cybersecurity threats ?

Oslandia and partners ( e.g. OPENGIS.ch) launched the Ā« Security Project for QGIS Ā» : a mutualized funding effort to increase QGIS cybersecurity.

ļøDuring this webinar, Vincent Picavet first presented the context of the project : new regulations are coming ( CRA, NIS2 ), cyberattacks increase, software see a growing complexity, and QGIS legacy makes it difficult to increase security … and its benefits !

You can access the replay for free, after filling in a quick survey.Ā 

Do not hesitate to pledge for the project on https://oslandia.com/en/security-project-for-qgis/, and contact us for any question qgis+security@oslandia.com !

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QGIS Spatial Join: Basics and Practice - QGIS LAB by MIERUNE

Introduction When you analyze data in GIS, you sometimes need to combine data from different layers. For example, when you want to count the hospitals in each municipality, you need to join layers bas...
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Using QGIS at Work: MIERUNE Adoption Support - QGIS LAB by MIERUNE

What is QGIS? If you want to try GIS but do not know which software to choose, or expensive GIS software feels out of reach, QGIS is worth a look. QGIS is open-source desktop GIS (geographic informati...
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