[GRASS5] a set of wishes for GRASS 5.7

[Michael Barton]

I am starting a project soon in which I hope to use GRASS 5.7. Given 
that an increasing amount of development is shifting to 5.7, I have a 
set of wishes I want to get out to the list. Perhaps with summer coming 
around, some can happen.

1. This is the biggest. I wish there was some way in GRASS itself to 
manage attribute data--especially for vectors. (I'm referring to the 
new GRASS native dbf format, not the external databases to which GRASS 
can connect.) v.reclass no-longer has any interactive component. The 
only way to edit values is to 1) use d.what.vect (which is still buggy 
and doesn't work after the first time in a GRASS session) on one 
feature at a time, or 2) use v.digit, again one feature at a time. 
There is no easy way to even see what values are in the linked 
attribute table for a vector map now that v.report is gone. I'd like to 
see v.report come back with options to select fields to report on. 
However, even more, I'd like to have some kind of simple table display 
and edit functions in GRASS. The ArcView model of a spreadsheet-like 
table view, with basic editing and query functions, seems desirable. 
The lack of any way to manage GRASS attribute data is made worse by the 
fact that GRASS now has the potential for much richer attribute data 
and much better query tools, coupled by the strange lack of open-source 
dbf management tools (like phpMyAdmin for MySQL). Perhaps someone can 
create a db.manage module.

Along these lines, it would also be nice to get back the interactive 
versions of r.reclass and r.recode that permit simple editing of 
category values. It would also be very nice to get back a way to enter 
or modify raster label strings. These were done under r.support, which 
is missing from 5.7. There is currently no way to modify raster labels 
in GRASS 5.7.

In sum, GRASS 5.7 has some new and very powerful ways to query 
attribute data, but has very minimal means to manage those data--even 
less so than in 5.0 and 5.3.

2. A flag that sets a default database connection (using the standard 
GRASS dbf files) for commands that have a database connection option. 
I'm still having trouble specifying the correct syntax to connect to 
the database in the new Spearfish data set for 5.7. The flag would make 
the connection to the database located in 
$GISBASE/$LOCATION_NAME/$MAPSET/dbf/. Obviously there is more to it 
than simply specifying this path. I've done that and still am getting a 
DBMI protocol error. For the GRASS native format, this should be 
largely seamless.

3. Select buttons for colors, icons, column name, and field value in 
d.vect. These seem doable as they exist (at least the colors and icons) 
in the version of d.vect in d.m.

4. A 'clear' button for all the tcltk autogenerated dialogs. I guess 
this would require a change to g.parser. However, it is a minor but 
cumulative pain to select long output in the lower window and scroll to 
delete it--so that I can see what I am doing wrong with the most 
current version of the command I issue.

5. A return of an interactive r.mapcalc. This is a complex tcltk 
script. Maybe I can even do this as I work on scripts this summer. 
However, if someone has a better idea, that would be great.

I sent in several bug reports for GRASS 5.7 to the bug tracker. I can 
reiterate them to the list if people think it would be good to do so. I 
just don't want to double people's mail.

Michael Barton
____________________
C. Michael Barton, Professor
School of Human Origins, Cultures, & Societies
PO Box 872402
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
USA

Phone: 480-965-6262
Fax: 480-965-7671
www: <www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton>