[sideband]

QGIS is fantastic and that team deserves a lot of praise for their work over the years. However, the article calls out using KML as a data source and unfortunately QGIS does not have the best support for KML. One of the reasons KML is still around despite it's faults is because a KML author can easily design a UI for their data in Google Earth, organizing data by folders with descriptions, including pre-defined views and image overlays among other things (a basic example here: https://kmzview.com/5qBGblENff4w0RkQf89J). Then, anybody who opens that KML in Google Earth gets that same UI. There are a lot of casual consumers of this type of data and this experience is powerful for them. I think QGIS could really broaden their appeal to this casual user base by supporting these well-loved KML features.

[otter-in-a-suit]

TIL. I used what I got from my rural county’s website / GIS (hence kml) - I wonder if I could get proper shape files by calling their GIS department.

[dvdkon]

Shapefiles are no more proper than KML, I'd even say KML is a better format, since it's a single file and doesn't have the archaic name limitations of SHP.

[larodi]

use PostGIS with proper spatial indices, and properly tuned if you have to take the QGIS way. and remember that spatial SQL is always better than using python-based analysis. particularly with newer versions of Postgre where there is chance that the queries be parallelized.