| | 178 | The idea of using templates to expedite and ease the process of creation of print layouts has been around and is used in such products as AutoCAD, Topobase and ESRI (!ArcGis). However, the templates used are not inter-operable yet because of a lack of common definition of what that template will be. Typically, you’d create a print layout using an existing template that defines what type of print layout elements should appear, where and how. The ideas of reusing a print layout resource definition for print layout template has been slightly explored with the assumption that when the print layout elements within the template are realized during the creation of an actual print layout, the ambient information is automatically used without further indulgence from the user. For example, if a map viewport is included in the template, we won’t obviously have enough information about what map it will display, what the view of the map is, etc., but we would associate all map viewports with the current map and default view (entire map), for example, upon realization of a print layout using the template. |
