[GRASS5] GRASS extension manager proposal

[Michael Barton]

I want to echo the positive other replies to this proposal. This is very
much along the lines of what Paolo, I, and others have suggested. It would
be good if the 'g.install' routine could also insert shell scripts into the
extension menu hierarchy.

Another longer-term idea (i.e., for the 6.x series) I tossed into the fray a
few months back is to make modules self-organizing in the GUI unless
overridden by a users. We already have a start in how that could be achieved
by the letter-dot prefix of GRASS modules. r.* modules are raster, and so
on. We could build on that so that each module and script written would have
a short header string that identified where it belonged in the menu
hierarchy. Then, when someone installed a module, it would go to a logical
local rather than into a long extension menu.

The ultimate objective is to make a GUI that is more or less
self-generating. If I remember correctly, some time back, Radim was working
on a QT version of the GUI that would use XML to manage the menu hierarchy
with this kind of goal in mind. In such a case, a self-generating menu
system (or alternative better GUI) would be considerably more feasible.

Michael


On 12/15/04 3:49 AM, "Benjamin Ducke" <benducke at compuserve.de> wrote:

> My ideas are:
> 
> For each extension:
> - put all source code and binaries for selected systems into
>   a tarball
> - also add some standardised ASCII description files to the
>   tarball:
> - version information
> - binary and dependencies information
> - source URL and author info
> - Tcl/Tk menu code for the GIS manager
> 
> For GRASS 5.7:
> - the g.install module could be used to
> list, install, update and remove extension
>         binaries and documentation
> 
> - installation could be system-wide into any GRASS bin tree location
>   the user has write access to or user-only into a directory
>   into a dir under the user's current location or mapset.
> 
> - a new menu entry 'Extensions' in the GIS manager where extensions
>   can register their modules in a submenu and hooks for g.install
>   to query, update or remove these extensions are provided
> 

______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human, Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
USA

voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton