Markus Metz <[email protected]> writes: > [moving to a new thread] > > > On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 10:55 PM, Markus Neteler <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 8:16 PM, Moritz Lennert >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On 21/01/15 19:35, Markus Neteler wrote: >>>> In my opinion we should not have the location selection dialog at all. >>>> Revolution! >>>> >>>> We should start GRASS right away in latlong like most GIS in the world. >>>> >>>> Then let the user open the dialog to change projection if desired from >>>> inside. >>>> >>>> This would avoid a lot of questions right away. >>> >>> Please don't do this ! >> >> OK, now being back from phone to a real keyboard, I can write a few more >> lines. >> >> I am thinking about this issue for seeral years meanwhile (hint: I >> started in 1993 to use the software, getting stuck at the text start >> screen not having a manual :-). >> >> So my full suggestions are >> - beautify the actual screen (hence my recent suggestion which is >> lively discussed here), >> - optionally (!) allow to start GRASS without welcome/loc/mapset >> screen but to open it in LatLong as described above. Again, as an >> option. We could implement that in trunk and see how it goes. All the >> tools to select locations, projections and such are there. >> >>> I find the fact that GRASS does not provide a default >>> projection system, but forces the user to think about projection from the >>> start, one of its strengths, both for work and for teaching. >> >> On of it strenghts, yes. But I have been teaching GRASS a lot to GIS >> professionals who got trained on different systems. And many asked >> "why this screen? why cannot you just start like the other GIS"? And I >> tend to agree (again: optionally). The point is that we, on the >> contrary to many other GIS, still have all the control mechanisms in >> place which avoid that the user mixes projections. So that's all fine. >> >> Also in Portland at the FOSS4G conf (where I showcased GRASS GIS 7) >> people suggested to let 'em get into the system right away. They >> explained to me that a newcomer wants to see the menu to understand >> how powerful the system is. But they would get stuck at the welcome >> screen... Yes, and they don't want to think before they open the >> program but "just try", out of curiosity. > > A suggestion for a compromise: > > Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like > "Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y"
Which would be the last opened mapset or, if opened for the first time, the demo mapset? > nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsets > > Only two buttons: OK, Change > Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen. I would add a third button which says "Start in demo location" to make it easier to return to the demo location after having already used GRASS GIS - for e.g. running examples and tests of other applications which use the demo dataset. > > The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would > reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome > screen. It would also give more space for a little graphic ;-) > > Location and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist, > create a new GISDBASE in the user's home, put the demolocation in it > and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that). This sounds like a good compromise. And if then there is a nice QGIS like dialog to create a new location / mapset including projections, to start GRASS would be much easier. Thinking of it - a history of recently used mapsets on the welcome screen, which shows the projection, extent and the file path, is something which would be really useful. Cheers, Rainer > > Markus M -- Rainer M. Krug email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de PGP: 0x0F52F982
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