Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
On Sep 12, 2009, at 10:31 AM, Helena Mitasova wrote: On Sep 12, 2009, at 4:04 AM, Robert Szczepanek wrote: Michael Barton pisze: On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Hamish wrote: Any objections to renaming the mini-menu to "Add decoration" from "Add overlay"? "Overlay" might be confused with raster overlays, and is otherwise not very clear in its meaning. Hamish Can anyone think of another term than overlay (I understand the possible confusion) and decoration (is a scale really a "decoration"?). Is decoration the correct cartographic term? Is there another? Michael Add (map) description? I tried to find a better term (overlay and decorations are really bad) - here are some terms commonly used for legend, scale, title, autor etc.: add map description add map elements add map components I am not sure which one is the best, Helena Of all of these, I like "map elements" best so far. Michael Robert ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Hi, 2009/9/11 Robert Szczepanek : [...] > Which version are we talking about? > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass2/element-add.png > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/silk/overlays.png > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass/gui-rastanalyze.gif > > I agree with you. None of them is good :) > Any idea how it should look like? > Explicit version like this one? > http://robert.szczepanek.pl/icon/0.1/overlay-add.png overlay icon changed (i.e., element-add -> overlay-add) in r39152 (trunk) and r39153 (devbr6). Should be backported also to relbr64? Martin -- Martin Landa * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
On Sep 12, 2009, at 4:04 AM, Robert Szczepanek wrote: Michael Barton pisze: On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Hamish wrote: Any objections to renaming the mini-menu to "Add decoration" from "Add overlay"? "Overlay" might be confused with raster overlays, and is otherwise not very clear in its meaning. Hamish Can anyone think of another term than overlay (I understand the possible confusion) and decoration (is a scale really a "decoration"?). Is decoration the correct cartographic term? Is there another? Michael Add (map) description? I tried to find a better term (overlay and decorations are really bad) - here are some terms commonly used for legend, scale, title, autor etc.: add map description add map elements add map components I am not sure which one is the best, Helena Robert ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Given that wxGUI is completely new and minimally tested by broader users community it is quite amazing how robust it is and I would vote for releasing it as a default GUI for both Mac and linux, as it is now for winGRASS. It may be worth to spend some time on polishing it for GRASS64 final release, rather than having to maintain two GUIs I agree. I am not sure if we can do such major change in this stage (after 5 rcs and probably few weeks before final release). It would require other RC - in this case I would vote against. I would be happy to see 6.4.0 out even with TCL/TK as default, but soon. We can choose wxGUI as default in 6.5 (which should be out quite soon). Martin - I am not suggesting any major change here, I was suggesting two things: - given that wxGUI is already default in winGRASS, why wait for 6.5 for Mac and Linux? It should not delay 6.4 release. We could also go back to TclTk with WinGRASS to keep consistency in binaries, but I am not sure it is a good idea to do a major release with default GUI that is not being maintained any more. - by polishing wxGUI I meant what we are doing right now - fixing help page, fix any bugs or weird behaviors that show up during testing and perhaps make minimal changes to icons or descriptions, such as the "Add overlay" issue. There may be more issues like this in TclTK GUI than wxGUI, but there is nobody is going to fix those. Helena ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Michael Barton pisze: > > > On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Hamish wrote: > >> Any objections to renaming the mini-menu to "Add decoration" from >> "Add overlay"? "Overlay" might be confused with raster overlays, >> and is otherwise not very clear in its meaning. >> >> >> Hamish > > Can anyone think of another term than overlay (I understand the possible > confusion) and decoration (is a scale really a "decoration"?). Is > decoration the correct cartographic term? Is there another? > > Michael Add (map) description? Robert ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Hi, 2009/9/12 Martin Landa : [...] The dialog name for r.shaded.relief is "raded.relief". Didn't check other dialogs. >> >> Looks OK on my Mac version. Maybe it is fixed now. > > Not here, it's bug (will be fixed). It's probably due to 'sh' which is > replaced by default (shell script extension). Fixed in r39137. Martin -- Martin Landa * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Hi, 2009/9/12 Michael Barton : [...] >> The one very confusing thing is that when you try to run any d.* command >> it says "not yet implemented" so it looks like unfinished thing which >> may be OK >> for RC but not for the final release. I suggest to change the message >> to something >> like "not applicable without X11 support, please use appropriate icons, >> see wxGUI help" although people generally won't know what X11 is - >> so maybe somebody has a better suggestion? >> >> And as I said before - I am missing the d.* commands sooo much! > > The old d.* commands will not work in GRASS 7...at all because of the change > in the underlying display architecture. Remember, they dumped displays to a They could work, but it needs some developer to implement it. First step would be to implement d.mon for wx displays. Then you should be able to start wxGUI Display Window from CLI, e.g., d.mon wx0. I hope it will be done for 7.0. > The reason for the message is that Jachim Czpicky originally, and Martin > Landa subsequently have thought about the possibility of having the command > parser recognize a d.* command and display the result in a wxpython canvas. > This sort of works in the Mac and Unix from the wxpython command parser, but > I don't think that the python scripts to do this from a terminal are > functional (Martin can correct me on this if I'm wrong). They are not functional, but could be after probably little work. But it was just designed as temporally solution - as I mentioned we need d.mon back suitable to work with wxGUI displays. > However, it seems to me better to wait until the display architecture is > more finalized in GRASS 7 to do this. You can still display in x11 on GRASS > 6 however. Maybe we should change the message for windows, however. I'm not > sure where that message would live if you are talking about this from the > Msys terminal. Right. >>> I noticed that the students were using most the "load map layers into >>> workspace" icon, instead of "add raster" or "add vector". I don't know >>> if this is because "load maps" is more to the left of the toolbar, and >>> if you read from left to right, you see it before the others. I think >>> that it would be better if the three "workspace" icons were at the far >>> right of the toolbar. Also I would put the "add raster" and "add >>> vector" icons with a different image, to highlight them from the >>> others. >> > There seems some logic to putting all the layer add buttons to the left and > the workspace buttons to the right, but I don't have strong feelings about > it. >> I am not sure about this - I did not observe students using load map >> layers >> - maybe you have shown >> the students the load map layers first and they stick to it even >> after they find out >> about add raster. >From my POV Layer Toolbar seems quite intuitive/standard to me. On the left-most side are located icons which manage workspace (new, open, save). The most GUI application which I use have also file-management icons on the left (new/open/save file) side. "Load map layers" is useful when you want to add more map layers in one shot. Otherwise it's more easy to click on icon to add raster/vector map layer (also note key shortcuts added recently to GRASS 6.5 and 7.0) [1]. >>> In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I >>> think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one >>> for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. >> >> YES!!! Everybody here complains that they cannot find the legend button. >> Even if you read the wxGUI help - it is hard to remember. > > Robert's new proposed button is much better. +1 >>> In GIS manager, it looks to me that the "maps for each display" and >>> "command output" are tabs, right? using a wx.notebook? in this case, I >>> have to say that they don't look like tabs, and this always got me a >>> little confused. If they had a real tab-like appearance, it would be >>> better to understand the way the GUI works, because anyone that's new >>> to the interface would know that there are two tabs with different >>> contents. >> >> I would agree with this, although most students figured this out. > > Maybe change the background color of the bar behind the tabs if that is > possible? It's just matter of style which is currently used. Probably I would prefer to use no style with default look-and-feel. >> Given that wxGUI is completely new and minimally tested by broader >> users community it is quite amazing how robust it is and I would vote >> for releasing it as a default GUI for both Mac and linux, as it is >> now for winGRASS. It may be worth to spend some time on polishing >> it for GRASS64 final release, rather than having to maintain two GUIs > > I agree. I am not sure if we can do such major change in this stage (after 5 rcs and probably few weeks before final release). It would require other RC - in this case I would vote against. I would be happy to see 6.4.0 out
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Hamish wrote: Any objections to renaming the mini-menu to "Add decoration" from "Add overlay"? "Overlay" might be confused with raster overlays, and is otherwise not very clear in its meaning. Hamish Can anyone think of another term than overlay (I understand the possible confusion) and decoration (is a scale really a "decoration"?). Is decoration the correct cartographic term? Is there another? Michael ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
> >> YES!!! Everybody here complains that they cannot find the legend > >> button. Even if you read the wxGUI help - it is hard to remember. > > > > Which version are we talking about? > > This one > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass2/element-add.png oh, I always looked right past that; never noticed what it did. > > I agree with you. None of them is good :) > > Any idea how it should look like? > > Explicit version like this one? > > http://robert.szczepanek.pl/icon/0.1/overlay-add.png > > Big improvement from my perspective. I agree. Any objections to renaming the mini-menu to "Add decoration" from "Add overlay"? "Overlay" might be confused with raster overlays, and is otherwise not very clear in its meaning. Hamish ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Michael Barton wrote: > > And as I said before - I am missing the d.* commands sooo much! > > The old d.* commands will not work in GRASS 7...at all because of the > change in the underlying display architecture. The commands work fine; they just behave differently in terms of where the resulting image ends up. > Remember, they dumped displays to a generic X window. They generated output via the current monitor, which may or may not have been an X monitor. > To get an image into a canvas (TclTk > or wxPython) is considerably more complicated, though you can do a lot > more with it once it's there. > > The reason for the message is that Jachim Czpicky originally, and > Martin Landa subsequently have thought about the possibility of having > the command parser recognize a d.* command and display the result in a > wxpython canvas. Trying to recognise d.* commands prior to execution is unwise; e.g. this probably won't work if the command is a user script which invokes d.* commands. It would make more sense to assume that any command may generate output, and to allow for this by setting all relevant environment variables. > This sort of works in the Mac and Unix from the > wxpython command parser, but I don't think that the python scripts to > do this from a terminal are functional (Martin can correct me on this > if I'm wrong). > > However, it seems to me better to wait until the display architecture > is more finalized in GRASS 7 to do this. I'm unaware of any planned changes to the way that the display library works. I'm not anticipating any significant changes, although specific features can be added if necessary. -- Glynn Clements ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Hello Helena and Robert. >On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 14:28, Helena Mitasova wrote: > >> I noticed that the students were using most the "load map layers into >> workspace" icon, instead of "add raster" or "add vector". I don't know >> if this is because "load maps" is more to the left of the toolbar, and >> if you read from left to right, you see it before the others. I think >> that it would be better if the three "workspace" icons were at the far >> right of the toolbar. Also I would put the "add raster" and "add >> vector" icons with a different image, to highlight them from the >> others. > > I am not sure about this - I did not observe students using load map layers > - maybe you have shown > the students the load map layers first and they stick to it even after they > find out > about add raster. >> Actually I didn't even know about the "load map" before the workshop (wasn't using the wx interface much). I always use (and teach) the "add raster". But the workshop was very fast-paced, so maybe they got a little lost and start hovering the mouse over the GUI to find out what the icons do, and starting from the left, "load maps" comes before "add raster".. I still think the workspace icons should go to the far right of the toolbar. >On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 17:37, Robert Szczepanek wrote: > > Which version are we talking about? > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass2/element-add.png > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/silk/overlays.png > http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass/gui-rastanalyze.gif > > I agree with you. None of them is good :) > Any idea how it should look like? > Explicit version like this one? > http://robert.szczepanek.pl/icon/0.1/overlay-add.png I forgotto say, I'm using the default "grass2" icon set. The explicit one you pointed is better, but still maybe one icon per overlay? (legend, north arrow, text)? cheers Carlos -- Carlos Henrique Grohmann - Geologist D.Sc. a.k.a. Guano - Linux User #89721 ResearcherID: A-9030-2008 http://digitalelevation.blogspot.com http://www.igc.usp.br/pessoais/guano _ Can’t stop the signal. ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
On Sep 11, 2009, at 2:12 PM, grass-dev-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:37:25 +0200 From: Robert Szczepanek Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface To: Helena Mitasova Cc: Carlos Grohmann ,grass-dev Message-ID: <4aaab505.9070...@szczepanek.pl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Hello Helena and Carlos, Thank you for valuable comments on GUI. Helena Mitasova pisze: Little bit of cosmetics to wxGUI would indeed help, especially for new users - see my comments below: On Sep 11, 2009, at 11:01 AM, Carlos Grohmann wrote: In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. YES!!! Everybody here complains that they cannot find the legend button. Even if you read the wxGUI help - it is hard to remember. Which version are we talking about? This one http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass2/element-add.png I agree with you. None of them is good :) Any idea how it should look like? Explicit version like this one? http://robert.szczepanek.pl/icon/0.1/overlay-add.png Big improvement from my perspective. Thanks Michael Robert ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Thanks for more comments. See below for some responses and ideas. Michael __ C. Michael Barton Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-2402 USA voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671 www:http://csdc.asu.edu, http://shesc.asu.edu http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton On Sep 11, 2009, at 2:12 PM, grass-dev-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:28:56 -0400 From: Helena Mitasova Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface To: Carlos Grohmann Cc: grass-dev Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; delsp=yes; format=flowed Little bit of cosmetics to wxGUI would indeed help, especially for new users - see my comments below: On Sep 11, 2009, at 11:01 AM, Carlos Grohmann wrote: One thing is that the WX interface doesn't open a terminal (at least in Windows), so if one is thinking about running GRASS+R, with GRASS on top of R, there is no way. Or is there? yes, there is, we open GRASS using GRASS+MSYS icon (the one with grass and blue M) and that opens wxGUI and shell. This makes the environment on linux, Mac and WinGRASS very similar to each other and so far worked great for me. The one very confusing thing is that when you try to run any d.* command it says "not yet implemented" so it looks like unfinished thing which may be OK for RC but not for the final release. I suggest to change the message to something like "not applicable without X11 support, please use appropriate icons, see wxGUI help" although people generally won't know what X11 is - so maybe somebody has a better suggestion? And as I said before - I am missing the d.* commands sooo much! The old d.* commands will not work in GRASS 7...at all because of the change in the underlying display architecture. Remember, they dumped displays to a generic X window. To get an image into a canvas (TclTk or wxPython) is considerably more complicated, though you can do a lot more with it once it's there. The reason for the message is that Jachim Czpicky originally, and Martin Landa subsequently have thought about the possibility of having the command parser recognize a d.* command and display the result in a wxpython canvas. This sort of works in the Mac and Unix from the wxpython command parser, but I don't think that the python scripts to do this from a terminal are functional (Martin can correct me on this if I'm wrong). However, it seems to me better to wait until the display architecture is more finalized in GRASS 7 to do this. You can still display in x11 on GRASS 6 however. Maybe we should change the message for windows, however. I'm not sure where that message would live if you are talking about this from the Msys terminal. I noticed that the students were using most the "load map layers into workspace" icon, instead of "add raster" or "add vector". I don't know if this is because "load maps" is more to the left of the toolbar, and if you read from left to right, you see it before the others. I think that it would be better if the three "workspace" icons were at the far right of the toolbar. Also I would put the "add raster" and "add vector" icons with a different image, to highlight them from the others. I am not sure about this - I did not observe students using load map layers - maybe you have shown the students the load map layers first and they stick to it even after they find out about add raster. There seems some logic to putting all the layer add buttons to the left and the workspace buttons to the right, but I don't have strong feelings about it. In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. YES!!! Everybody here complains that they cannot find the legend button. Even if you read the wxGUI help - it is hard to remember. Robert's new proposed button is much better. In GIS manager, it looks to me that the "maps for each display" and "command output" are tabs, right? using a wx.notebook? in this case, I have to say that they don't look like tabs, and this always got me a little confused. If they had a real tab-like appearance, it would be better to understand the way the GUI works, because anyone that's new to the interface would know that there are two tabs with different contents. I would agree with this, although most students figured this out. Maybe change the background color of the bar behind the tabs if that is possible? Given that wxGUI is completely new and minimally tested by broa
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Hello Helena and Carlos, Thank you for valuable comments on GUI. Helena Mitasova pisze: > Little bit of cosmetics to wxGUI would indeed help, especially for new > users - see my comments below: > > On Sep 11, 2009, at 11:01 AM, Carlos Grohmann wrote: >> In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I >> think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one >> for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. > > YES!!! Everybody here complains that they cannot find the legend button. > Even if you read the wxGUI help - it is hard to remember. Which version are we talking about? http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass2/element-add.png http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/silk/overlays.png http://grass.itc.it/grass64/manuals/html64_user/icons/grass/gui-rastanalyze.gif I agree with you. None of them is good :) Any idea how it should look like? Explicit version like this one? http://robert.szczepanek.pl/icon/0.1/overlay-add.png Robert ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
Re: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Little bit of cosmetics to wxGUI would indeed help, especially for new users - see my comments below: On Sep 11, 2009, at 11:01 AM, Carlos Grohmann wrote: One thing is that the WX interface doesn't open a terminal (at least in Windows), so if one is thinking about running GRASS+R, with GRASS on top of R, there is no way. Or is there? yes, there is, we open GRASS using GRASS+MSYS icon (the one with grass and blue M) and that opens wxGUI and shell. This makes the environment on linux, Mac and WinGRASS very similar to each other and so far worked great for me. The one very confusing thing is that when you try to run any d.* command it says "not yet implemented" so it looks like unfinished thing which may be OK for RC but not for the final release. I suggest to change the message to something like "not applicable without X11 support, please use appropriate icons, see wxGUI help" although people generally won't know what X11 is - so maybe somebody has a better suggestion? And as I said before - I am missing the d.* commands sooo much! I noticed that the students were using most the "load map layers into workspace" icon, instead of "add raster" or "add vector". I don't know if this is because "load maps" is more to the left of the toolbar, and if you read from left to right, you see it before the others. I think that it would be better if the three "workspace" icons were at the far right of the toolbar. Also I would put the "add raster" and "add vector" icons with a different image, to highlight them from the others. I am not sure about this - I did not observe students using load map layers - maybe you have shown the students the load map layers first and they stick to it even after they find out about add raster. In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. YES!!! Everybody here complains that they cannot find the legend button. Even if you read the wxGUI help - it is hard to remember. In GIS manager, it looks to me that the "maps for each display" and "command output" are tabs, right? using a wx.notebook? in this case, I have to say that they don't look like tabs, and this always got me a little confused. If they had a real tab-like appearance, it would be better to understand the way the GUI works, because anyone that's new to the interface would know that there are two tabs with different contents. I would agree with this, although most students figured this out. Given that wxGUI is completely new and minimally tested by broader users community it is quite amazing how robust it is and I would vote for releasing it as a default GUI for both Mac and linux, as it is now for winGRASS. It may be worth to spend some time on polishing it for GRASS64 final release, rather than having to maintain two GUIs - I found that some people who learned TclTK GUI stick to it and are hesitant to switch. Helena Also it would be very nice if instead of "maps for each display", we had "maps for display 1", "maps for display 2", etc. Also, using the mouse scroll wheel to navigate between tabs, IMO, is a must-have. That includes all tabs, the display tabs in gism and the options tabs in the commands dialogs. I also noticed that one can "close" tabs in the command dialog. why? the arrows to scroll to tabs that may not be visible is OK (although I would prefer to have all the tabs shown, even if that meant two rows of tabs), but closing tabs shouldn't be an option. Maybe we can save some space using regular "square" tabs instead of the tabs with that triangular ending. The dialog name for r.shaded.relief is "raded.relief". Didn't check other dialogs. And I noticed that I can't change the HTML browser (Ubuntu 9.04, latest GRASS SVN). It always call Konqueror. I tried changing GRASS_HTML_BROWSER to firefox or chromium-browser, but unsuccessfully. that's it for now. I'll use only the WX interface now, so I might come back with more feedback soon. cheers Carlos -- Carlos Henrique Grohmann - Geologist D.Sc. a.k.a. Guano - Linux User #89721 ResearcherID: A-9030-2008 http://digitalelevation.blogspot.com http://www.igc.usp.br/pessoais/guano _ Can’t stop the signal. ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
[GRASS-dev] Re: GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Thanks for the thoughtful review and summary Carlos. Michael On Sep 11, 2009, at 8:02 AM, grass-dev-requ...@lists.osgeo.org wrote: Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:01:51 -0300 From: Carlos Grohmann Subject: [GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface To: grass-dev Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Dear devs, Recently we had a workshop on SAGA+GRASS+R at the Geomorphometry2009 conference (www.geomorphometry.org). Before the workshop I was using the old tcl/tk interface (pretty much because of laziness, I'm used to it), but during the workshop most students were using Windows, so the WX interface was the default. Besides some bugs with the Windows version of GRASS, it went well. Some of the issues I observed during the workshop follow, so we can discuss ways to improve GRASS. One thing is that the WX interface doesn't open a terminal (at least in Windows), so if one is thinking about running GRASS+R, with GRASS on top of R, there is no way. Or is there? I noticed that the students were using most the "load map layers into workspace" icon, instead of "add raster" or "add vector". I don't know if this is because "load maps" is more to the left of the toolbar, and if you read from left to right, you see it before the others. I think that it would be better if the three "workspace" icons were at the far right of the toolbar. Also I would put the "add raster" and "add vector" icons with a different image, to highlight them from the others. In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. In GIS manager, it looks to me that the "maps for each display" and "command output" are tabs, right? using a wx.notebook? in this case, I have to say that they don't look like tabs, and this always got me a little confused. If they had a real tab-like appearance, it would be better to understand the way the GUI works, because anyone that's new to the interface would know that there are two tabs with different contents. Also it would be very nice if instead of "maps for each display", we had "maps for display 1", "maps for display 2", etc. Also, using the mouse scroll wheel to navigate between tabs, IMO, is a must-have. That includes all tabs, the display tabs in gism and the options tabs in the commands dialogs. I also noticed that one can "close" tabs in the command dialog. why? the arrows to scroll to tabs that may not be visible is OK (although I would prefer to have all the tabs shown, even if that meant two rows of tabs), but closing tabs shouldn't be an option. Maybe we can save some space using regular "square" tabs instead of the tabs with that triangular ending. The dialog name for r.shaded.relief is "raded.relief". Didn't check other dialogs. And I noticed that I can't change the HTML browser (Ubuntu 9.04, latest GRASS SVN). It always call Konqueror. I tried changing GRASS_HTML_BROWSER to firefox or chromium-browser, but unsuccessfully. that's it for now. I'll use only the WX interface now, so I might come back with more feedback soon. cheers Carlos ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
[GRASS-dev] some impressions on the wx interface
Dear devs, Recently we had a workshop on SAGA+GRASS+R at the Geomorphometry2009 conference (www.geomorphometry.org). Before the workshop I was using the old tcl/tk interface (pretty much because of laziness, I'm used to it), but during the workshop most students were using Windows, so the WX interface was the default. Besides some bugs with the Windows version of GRASS, it went well. Some of the issues I observed during the workshop follow, so we can discuss ways to improve GRASS. One thing is that the WX interface doesn't open a terminal (at least in Windows), so if one is thinking about running GRASS+R, with GRASS on top of R, there is no way. Or is there? I noticed that the students were using most the "load map layers into workspace" icon, instead of "add raster" or "add vector". I don't know if this is because "load maps" is more to the left of the toolbar, and if you read from left to right, you see it before the others. I think that it would be better if the three "workspace" icons were at the far right of the toolbar. Also I would put the "add raster" and "add vector" icons with a different image, to highlight them from the others. In the Map Display, the "overlay" icon doesn't really mean much, I think that a different image would help, or even three buttons, one for legend, one for north arrow and on for text. In GIS manager, it looks to me that the "maps for each display" and "command output" are tabs, right? using a wx.notebook? in this case, I have to say that they don't look like tabs, and this always got me a little confused. If they had a real tab-like appearance, it would be better to understand the way the GUI works, because anyone that's new to the interface would know that there are two tabs with different contents. Also it would be very nice if instead of "maps for each display", we had "maps for display 1", "maps for display 2", etc. Also, using the mouse scroll wheel to navigate between tabs, IMO, is a must-have. That includes all tabs, the display tabs in gism and the options tabs in the commands dialogs. I also noticed that one can "close" tabs in the command dialog. why? the arrows to scroll to tabs that may not be visible is OK (although I would prefer to have all the tabs shown, even if that meant two rows of tabs), but closing tabs shouldn't be an option. Maybe we can save some space using regular "square" tabs instead of the tabs with that triangular ending. The dialog name for r.shaded.relief is "raded.relief". Didn't check other dialogs. And I noticed that I can't change the HTML browser (Ubuntu 9.04, latest GRASS SVN). It always call Konqueror. I tried changing GRASS_HTML_BROWSER to firefox or chromium-browser, but unsuccessfully. that's it for now. I'll use only the WX interface now, so I might come back with more feedback soon. cheers Carlos -- Carlos Henrique Grohmann - Geologist D.Sc. a.k.a. Guano - Linux User #89721 ResearcherID: A-9030-2008 http://digitalelevation.blogspot.com http://www.igc.usp.br/pessoais/guano _ Can’t stop the signal. ___ grass-dev mailing list grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
