Suggest switching to CartoCSS (or similar pre-processor) for editing map styles.
Reasoning: editing the Mapnik XML file is usually not a recommended option, and while it has been suitable for the simple styles initially, a number of recent developments has made it more time-consuming to maintain the map styles using the Mapnik XML:
the increasing number of tile layers
some more complex styles, like planning_combined which contains logic for both polygon and line symbolizers
in general, any logic that is based on varying line width based on zoom level. A new requirement for adding subtle outlines for coloured buildings (so that single terraced houses of the same age can be visually separated) would require adding custom zoom-based logic for every data layer.
Maintaining those rules in raw Mapnik XML is time-consuming and requires a lot of repetition.
Proposal: define map styles using the CartoCSS format. Use the carto node module at tile server start-up to generate a Mapnik XML.
mz8i
commented
4 years ago
Suggest switching to CartoCSS (or similar pre-processor) for editing map styles.
Reasoning: editing the Mapnik XML file is usually not a recommended option, and while it has been suitable for the simple styles initially, a number of recent developments has made it more time-consuming to maintain the map styles using the Mapnik XML:
planning_combinedwhich contains logic for both polygon and line symbolizersMaintaining those rules in raw Mapnik XML is time-consuming and requires a lot of repetition.
Proposal: define map styles using the CartoCSS format. Use the
cartonode module at tile server start-up to generate a Mapnik XML.