[ka-Map-users] order of labels in kamap

[Sacha Black]

hi all,

i searched the archives, but couldn't find mentions of this issue, so i'm
just looking for confirmation of what i am seeing with labels when
transitioning an old map file to kamap.

in regular mapserver, the behaviour is to draw all layers in order from top
to bottom of the mapfile, and then to reverse direction and draw all the
labels from bottom to top. this minimizes label/feature collisions,
prioritizes point labels over line labels over polygon labels, and seems to
balance label placement across the map

in contrast:

kamap draws each set of labels with its corresponding layer, so that labels
are placed regardless of collisions with labels on other layers, and labels
can be "overlain" and partially hidden by features higher up in the stack...
which can lead to some odd/ugly cartographic results.

is there something i am missing here? the above suggests that all labeling
in a kamap map file should be done at the bottom of the map file in a new
group (so labels are last to draw, and the overlay probelm is fixed) .... is
this the intention? would the result of doing this be comparable to straight
mapserver output?  i'm a bit worried about hitting an upper limit of allowed
layers if a large number need to be repeated as annotation layers....

sacha
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