On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:01 AM, Rainer M Krug <[email protected]> wrote: > Markus Metz <[email protected]> writes: > >> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 11:15 PM, Vaclav Petras <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:55 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 think that you have to go all the work anyway and the dummy location is >>> there just to show that it is possible. >>> >>> There are some potential problems, for example how it works now with the >>> .bash_history file? >>> >>>> > 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. >>>> >>> And what will you do after 'just starting'? Do you have your data as LL? Or >>> will you use -o flag to ignore the projection check? >>> >>>> >>>> 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. >>>> >>> >>> This is a good point. I can see that. However, manual is also useful for >>> this. This is what I use. Works for command line programs too. >>> >>> To satisfy everybody, I suggest to provide a buttons with something like >>> "Take me to LL", "Take me to default location" and "Take me to XY". What do >>> you think about that? >>> >>> But the real improvement should be the messages which would guide you >>> through the process. >> >> 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.
I disagree, keep the welcome screen as simple as possible, just short of having no welcome screen at all. If you want to change the location/mapset, you can click on Change. With demolocation I mean the demolocation embedded in the source tree, not one of the sample datasets. Markus M > >> >> 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 _______________________________________________ grass-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
