[GRASS5] QGIS + GRASS

[Paul Kelly]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2003, Radim Blazek wrote:

>
> I have written GRASS extension for QGIS, which can display GRASS 5.1
> vectors and attached attributes. It can work outside GRASS session,
> with maps from more locations/gisdbases:
> http://mpa.itc.it/radim/qgis/
>
> Radim

I thought someone would have replied to this by now but they haven't so I
will. Radim- do you think QGIS could be *the* GUI for GRASS? Now there is
GRASS++ for reading GRASS vectors and already libgrass for rasters. Of
course closer integration would be more desirable.

I just think it would fit really well as all the basic half-hearted GUI
stuff in GRASS could be removed and GRASS left as a mainly command-line
oriented 'back end' processing system for QGIS. The advanced analysis
functions could still be accessed through command-line (e.g. something
like AutoCAD where you still have a command-line at the bottom of the
screen although it is mostly GIU-oriented) or tcltkgrass-style
GUI boxes, but all the common display operations for people who like
their GIS to do automated cartography, could be accessed through the QGIS
GUI.

One of the things I don't like about GRASS 5.1 (from my very limited
experience testing it) is that there are GUI boxes popping up everywhere and
they are all Tcl/Tk which is very clunky and slow and not as nice to look
at as modern GUIs like Gtk or Qt. In fact I don't like GUIs at all and
prefer to do most of my work from the command-line. If the extensive GUI
was a totally separate project (e.g. part of QGIS) it would be such a much
tidier interface I think. It would also be easier for developers who want
to work on the GUI to do it without having to become completely familiar
with GRASS first. And the GRASS developers could just concentrate on the
core capabilities and algorithms etc.

This ties in with Markus' e-mail about release branches: it would be nice
to have the capabilities of the new vector engine in GRASS 5.1 without all
the 'side-effects' of GRASS 5.1, e.g. the GUIs for d.what.vect and
d.where etc., having to work with a different build system and the awkwardness
of the 'make mix' system, not having sites format in 5.1, the lack of testing
of everything on OSs other than Linux (although I suppose that is just the
way things are going these days).

One reason I wanted to see the old developers mailing list is that I was
wondering what discussion there had been and why GRASS 5.1 is in a
separate CVS module and not just a branch in the GRASS module. I have
never been able to find much justification for that.

Anyway I suppose it depends on QGIS being good enough and people thinking
it is heading in the right direction, but perhaps even the QGIS people
would like to link to GRASS for back-end data processing?

That's just a few of my ideas thrown out for discussion anyway,

Paul