[GRASS5] Platform for next generation UI

[Glynn Clements]

Michael Barton wrote:

> My main goal has been to try to have some kind of organized, coordinated
> effort in developing a new UI. GRASS seems a rather diffuse open source
> project, which means that it is open to a wider variety of contributors and
> more difficult to organize. It seems like we need to get a few energetic
> people to give a UI a trial run and then try to build some support for it.
> I'm trying to spark that.

One final point to bear in mind is that much (maybe even most) of the
work required for a good GUI consists of making the rest of GRASS more
GUI-friendly, e.g.:

+ Removing assumptions about having access to a terminal, or even to
stdin/stdout.
+ Minimising dependence upon global state (WIND, $GISRC, monitor pads,
etc).
+ Improving modules' metadata (e.g. the information used by
G_parser()).

Part of that involves getting rid of stuff which is GUI-unfriendly,
e.g. use of the vask library, G_ask(), R_get_location_with_*() etc. In
order to do that without leaving GRASS in a crippled state, some of it
will need to be replaced. In that regard, a basic GUI in e.g. Tcl/Tk
or wxPython could accelerate some of the tasks which need to be done
in preparation for a "real" GUI.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>