Spatial Databases - Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools - page 100

Figure 7.3: Creating a new PostGIS connection in QGIS
Typical use of PostGIS layers goes something like this:
1. Open the PostGIS dialog box by clicking the Add a PostGIS Layer tool .
2. Select the connection to use—if one doesn't already exist, create a
PostGIS connection to your database.
3. Connect to the database.
4. Select the layer(s) you want to add to the map.
5. Optionally specify a query to limit the features returned.
6. Optionally set the encoding.
7. Click the Add button to add the layer(s) to the map canvas.
We'll go through these steps one by one. Of course, by this point, we
assume you have loaded some data into a PostGIS database. If not,
see Section 7.3 , Loading PostGIS Data, on page 106 for information
on loading up your spatial database. To begin, let's open the PostGIS
dialog box and create a new connection. Click the New button to open
the Create a New PostGIS Connection dialog box. In Figure 7.3 , you can
see the completed dialog box for creating a new connection. Let's take
a look at the required fields.
Name
A descriptive name for the connection. This should be unique
enough so you can recall at a glance the database it uses.