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For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much bigger issue.
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<div class="">The reasons that GRASS just can’t open and then load a file like a word processor are multiple and related. Foremost is the underlying structure of the geospatial data that GRASS uses. The GISDBASE/location/mapset structure organizes the location
and the format of the data. </div>
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<div class="">A word processor like LibreOffice can open a file from anywhere, in any format that it can read, modify it, and save it to anywhere the computer user has access to. A GRASS user can ONLY open GIS data from a mapset within the current location
within the current database. A GIS file modified or created can ONLY be saved within the current mapset. A non-GRASS GIS file can be imported into the current mapset, but ONLY if it has the same projection as the current location. Any GRASS user must encounter
these interactions of file location, format, and projection before using GIS data. So allowing a user to start the program before facing this only kicks the can down the road a short distance. </div>
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<div class="">QGIS uses shapefiles and (IIRC) geotiffs for its GIS data. These are pretty portable and can be stored anywhere, and include projection information with them (or they should). Arc is more like GRASS. I’m not sure about the current version, but
in prior versions at least, you could not even move Arc directories without messing up the program’s ability to read the data correctly. </div>
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<div class="">Both QGIS and Arc get around the problem of opening files in different formats and projections by doing approximate reprojection on the fly. For a lot of very good reasons, the GRASS developer community has repeatedly decided that this is not
a good idea for GRASS because of its potential for geospatial error and for users to misunderstand the approximate nature of the automatic reprojection. </div>
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<div class="">So we are back to the database/location/mapset organization. Unless we make some fundamental changes in how GRASS works, users MUST open GRASS in a database/location/mapset. They MUST choose (or have chosen for them) a projection (location) and
working directory (mapset). Making a default one for them (e.g., a latlon default) doesn’t help all that much it seems to me. </div>
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<div class="">Perhaps an alternative is to change the names somewhat so that users are informed about what is really needed to start GRASS.</div>
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<div class="">1. pick a projection (not a location)</div>
<div class="">2. pick a working directory (not a mapset)</div>
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<div class="">To really implement this more easily, we might want to consider de-coupling these fundamentals (especially projection) from the file structure. In other words, we could get rid of “location” as a directory that has a PERMANENT mapset with files
for projection and extent, and keep this information elsewhere. Then we could more easily have working directories (currently called mapsets) in any location on the computer. This could make it easier to get people started and still maintain the geospatial
integrity that GRASS is known for.</div>
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<div class="">Michael</div>
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____________________</div>
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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="">
<font class="">fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)</font><br class="">
</font>
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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 22, 2015, at 8:27 AM, Anna Petrášová <<a href="mailto:kratochanna@gmail.com" class="">kratochanna@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Martin Landa<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:landa.martin@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">landa.martin@gmail.com</a>></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrote:<br class="">
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Hi,<br class="">
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2015-01-22 9:48 GMT+01:00 Markus Metz <<a href="mailto:markus.metz.giswork@gmail.com" class="">markus.metz.giswork@gmail.com</a>>:<br class="">
> A suggestion for a compromise:<br class="">
><br class="">
> Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like<br class="">
> "Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y"<br class="">
> nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsets<br class="">
><br class="">
> Only two buttons: OK, Change<br class="">
> Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen.<br class="">
><br class="">
> The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would<br class="">
> reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome<br class="">
> screen. It would also give more space for a little graphic ;-)<br class="">
><br class="">
> Location and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist,<br class="">
> create a new GISDBASE in the user's home, put the demolocation in it<br class="">
> and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that).<br class="">
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</span>it make sense to me, I really like this idea. Martin<br class="">
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<div class="">I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset quite often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just hits Start GRASS on the
current welcome dialog and there is no need for the minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It creates grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not in home. </div>
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<div class="">What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not really the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work and explanation and it's
useful not just for beginners. This is a topic for a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what we decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented. Especially when user will start with empty location, they will
want to import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of cases when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they get and don't read. </div>
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<div class="">Any opinion on what can we do for this release? </div>
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<div class="">Anna</div>
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--<br class="">
Martin Landa<br class="">
<a href="http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa" target="_blank" class="">http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa</a><br class="">
<a href="http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa" target="_blank" class="">http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa</a><br class="">
</font></span>
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