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In fact, wxPython for Mac at least, doesn’t look very Mac like. The windows versions I’ve seen don’t look particularly close to the current version of Windows either. This is unsurprising since wxPython focuses on cross-platform functionality. It needs to work
the same across multiple platforms. To do that, it has a default appearance that sacrifices some degree of design elements that would make it look more like the platform it is running on. Just going with the default look in a GUI platform is not necessarily
a virtue because it tends to be a lowest common denominator. However, wxPython also allows users to alter that default to some degree. It has ways of specifying fonts and colors that can propagate in equivalent ways across all platforms, for example. Giving
GRASS a distinctive visual appearance is not a vice to be avoided, as long as both function and visual elements propagate in an equivalent way across multiple platforms. Design elegance can enhance functionality as well. Of course, designing an elegant as
well as functional interface across multiple platforms is challenging. The iconography designed for GRASS, with a visual grammar, is a nice example of combining elegant design with functionality. We don’t always have the skills or time or other resources to
do this throughout the program, of course. And interface defaults in wxPython are better than poorly executed customizations, which may function inconsistently as well as look bad. But interface customization and enhancement doesn’t need to be avoided on principle.
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<div class="">Michael<br class="">
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">C. Michael Barton</font></div>
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity </font></div>
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science</font></div>
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Arizona State University</font></div>
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class=""><font class="">voice: </font><font class="">480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)</font><br class="">
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">www: <a href="http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton" class="">
http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton</a>, <a href="http://csdc.asu.edu" class="">http://csdc.asu.edu</a></font></div>
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<div class="">On Jan 20, 2015, at 11:09 PM, Vaclav Petras <<a href="mailto:wenzeslaus@gmail.com" class="">wenzeslaus@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 12:12 AM, Michael Barton<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:Michael.Barton@asu.edu" target="_blank" class="">Michael.Barton@asu.edu</a>></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrote:<br class="">
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<div class="">On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:49 PM, Vaclav Petras <<a href="mailto:wenzeslaus@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">wenzeslaus@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:Michael.Barton@asu.edu" target="_blank" class="">Michael.Barton@asu.edu</a>></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrote:<br class="">
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<div class="">On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <<a href="mailto:wenzeslaus@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">wenzeslaus@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <<a href="mailto:wenzeslaus@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">wenzeslaus@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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> I'm not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence "Welcome to...open source GIS". This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great
advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things.
There is "one row" for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).<br class="">
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<div class="">IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen. </div>
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<div class="">The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or
ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.</div>
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<div class="">The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.</div>
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<div class="">Sorry for the confusion. I'm speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window which actually appears *before* the splash screen and it has an old school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start GRASS :-).<br class="">
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<a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png" target="_blank" class="">http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png</a><br class="">
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<div class="">OK. I was talking about the Medieval map, which was the start of the thread. I’d suggested the first real world map, with some welcome text. Even better would be doing something with visual impact with a historic map or some other display (we
already have OpenGL loaded…). But that would take someone with the needed graphic skills. A colorful map and some good text is still tasteful. </div>
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<div class="">I also agree that the start screen needs some love too. It is boring grey and has a dated image at the top—which is what it seems you are talking about, right? </div>
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<div class="">Your nice green lettering on a light background would give it a nice clean look. FWIW, it would be classy to have the entire dialog an equally lighter shade too, with green or dark grey lettering in a nice font for the text outside of the wxPython
control widgets. </div>
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<div class="">I still wouldn’t put error messages on this dialog because it already has a lot of information and controls, and we need people to focus on what is needed to run GRASS. Maybe a more prominent help button because no one seems to notice it.</div>
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<div class="">Thanks for the feedback, however I think we need the complete opposite. Nobody reads the help even if the browser would open automatically. The help included in the dialog directly (not in the tooltips), in the form of messages focusing on "what
to do next", is the right way to communicate with user. This seems as a general (long term) trend which is widely accepted and I consider it good.<br class="">
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<div class="">I actually already applied this when I replaced several error dialogs by the error like with red text for cases when gisdbase is not valid. (This avoids user being bashed by error dialogs when gisdbase is empty or the dir was moved.) Error messages
and tips are obviously helpful for running GRASS while some non-boring backgrounds and pictures could be distracting.<br class="">
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<div class="">Removing the green text and the picture will buy space for additional line or two for info and error messages while keeping the dialog smaller than it is now. Another advantage of not having any picture at all is that it will never get old (as
happened to the current one).<br class="">
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<div class="">The shade of gray you see should be your system color. If you believe you see different one then it is likely a wxPython/wxWidgets bug. GRASS GIS, as any other SW should respect the system settings as much as possible, for example for aesthetics
and accessibility reasons. Even the green text on start button is against accessibility rules. Same with font, wxPython is trying to use default system font. If custom font would be used, there is no guaranty that it will be accessible on particular machine.
For example, I have really nice font by default for all the standard widgets, just the green text (with custom font) is not really nice.<br class="">
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" class="">____________________</div>
<div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">C. Michael Barton</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity </font></div>
<div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science</font></div>
<div class=""><font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">Arizona State University</font></div>
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<font face="Helvetica" size="3" class="">voice: <a href="tel:480-965-6262" value="+14809656262" target="_blank" class="">480-965-6262</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(SHESC), <a href="tel:480-965-8130" value="+14809658130" target="_blank" class="">480-965-8130</a>/727-9746 (CSDC)<br class="">
fax:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="tel:480-965-7671" value="+14809657671" target="_blank" class="">480-965-7671</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(SHESC), <a href="tel:480-727-0709" value="+14807270709" target="_blank" class="">480-727-0709</a> (CSDC)<br class="">
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<div class="h5">I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup
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<div class="">Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others. </div>
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With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don't match.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br class="">
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<a href="http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html" target="_blank" class="">http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html</a><br class="">
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On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <<a href="mailto:Michael.Barton@asu.edu" target="_blank" class="">Michael.Barton@asu.edu</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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> I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…<br class="">
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> Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…<br class="">
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> I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.<br class="">
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<div class="">As I said, I'm more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I'm just not sure if it is ok that it is
not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).<br class="">
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> Michael<br class="">
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> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <<a href="mailto:nik@nikosalexandris.net" target="_blank" class="">nik@nikosalexandris.net</a>> wrote:<br class="">
>><br class="">
>> On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> 2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <<a href="mailto:hmitaso@ncsu.edu" target="_blank" class="">hmitaso@ncsu.edu</a>>:<br class="">
>>>><br class="">
>>>> I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)<br class="">
>>>><br class="">
>>>>> GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.<br class="">
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>>> +1<br class="">
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>>> Much more better than the current:<br class="">
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>>> The world's leading open source GIS<br class="">
>><br class="">
>> What about<br class="">
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>> "GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world."<br class="">
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> I like more the "Bringing advanced..." than "Opening advanced..." because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).<br class="">
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> Note that it should be "GRASS GIS", not "GRASS" as much as possible.<br class="">
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> We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.<br class="">
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> Vaclav</div>
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