Wishlist: Have an option to display coordinates in DMS with N, S, E or W

[haflidi]

Today DMS (degree, minutes, seconds) coordinates are displayed without North, South, East or West, instead, + means north and east and - means south and west. This is very strange to use for us living south of equator or west of Prime Meridian. When writing coordinates to many GPS (like Garmin) you do pick N for north and W for west and do not use + or -.
Coordinatetool should have an option to choose to display coordinates with N, S, E or W so
64°53'23", -20°-12'-32" can be: N64°53'23", W20°12'32" (some prefer postfix presentation, i.e N and W in the end).
Same when in Degree-minutes format
64°53,3833', -20°-12,5333' can be: N64°53,3833', W20°12,5333'

Using + and - with DMS and DM can be very confusing, because -20°12'32" is different from -20°-12'-32" but in public mind it is often the same.

[jratike80]

I have never before seen DMS coordinates expressed as "-20°-12'-32". Can you add a link to some document where such notation format is specified?

I guess that you mean that
-20°-12'-32 stands for "20 degrees to the West, then 12 minutes to the West, and finally 32 seconds to the West, while
-20°12'32 would mean "20 degrees to the West, then 12 minutes to the EAST, and finally 32 seconds more to the East.

For example ArcGIS documentation http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/tool-reference/data-management/supported-notation-formats.htm explicitly denies multiple signs:

You cannot have multiple +/- signs within the DD MM SS.sss format.

[haflidi]

I am not saying that you should use -20°-12'-32" and can not add a link to some document where such notation format is specified, I'm only saying what is displayed in Oskari today, for me it is very strange to see it as it is today. I would prefer to have W20°12'32" (or 20°12'32"W).

[jratike80]

Ok, understood. I would say that it must not be -20°-12'-32" and an option to select display format as -20°12'32" or W20°12'32" (or 20°12'32"W) feels reasonable.

[ZakarFin]

Ok, to summarize:

• the presentation for negative degree values is weird at the moment
• instead of +/- before each part, one of N, S, E, W should be shown instead before or after the whole value (not before/after each part)

To be specified:

• should the letter be shown before or after the value (or make it configurable)?
• parsing rules for user input like:
  • is a letter necessary and if not what are the defaults?
  • can +/- be used and if so we should treat -E as W etc.

[haflidi]

Prefix (before) is a good start, but if you can configure it, have prefix as default

Have it configurable if letter is mandatory, that is force using of N, S, E or W
W is -E and S is -N but it is strange to use N and E with "-" and we should avoid to display that.

[rekjuh]

@haflidi like the other issue I just asked you on, is this still something you wish the Oskari team would work on? If you wish to keep this open and get updates, please create a new issue here: https://github.com/oskariorg/oskari-documentation/issues