[GRASS5] Re: more on color rules

[Hamish]

> Since the subject's been raised however, it seems worthwhile to relook
> 
> at how r.colors operates. As it stands now, colors=[options] only
> works for a limited set of predefined color tables, using other color
> tables can only be done via a command line redirection command (not
> available from the autogenerated GUI without scripting on top of the
> existing interface) and not through the colors=[options] format where
> it would seem to go, and interactive color table generation is
> accomplished through the color table loading
> argument--colors=rules--which doesn't work in the autogenerated GUI.
> The rast=[map] option is eminently sensible. However, the rest of it
> doesn't seem very consistent or 'intuitive' (that is reasonably easy
> to figure out without looking it up all the time). Since GRASS is
> being redone at the 5/6 boundary, it wouldn't hurt to see if this
> important set of functions can be made more straightforward to use.

to distill:
So what you'd like in the 5.7 GUI is a pulldown list that would
concatenate the dynamic color= options (grey.eq, random, etc) and the
available rules= options (byr, etc, whatever filenames exist in the
$GISBASE/etc/colors/ directory)

Another menu item would let you pick a raster map to use as the basis
(we should already have this one there, right?)

A third part of the menu might be a text entry box for entering rules by
hand (like in the bug report web page).

I have no clue on how to make TCL do any of this, but it's good to have
a feeling for what we want the destination to be.


> I realize that I'm one of those 'Mac people' who are constantly saying
> 
> that we should be stressing our mousing fingers rather than trying to 
> remember command-line syntax. But I must ashamedly admit that I 
> sometimes prefer the command line. However, I really hate trying to 
> remember and accurately type in a redirect the long and complex 
> pathways where I might stash a color table I want to use ;-)

I think this is the manifestation of a larger problem with pre-5.7
GRASS, ie inconsistency in option naming. Sometimes it is map= sometimes
it is rast= and sometimes it is input=. For 5.7 there are some
guidelines on what these should be, but are only really implimented for
the new vector modules.

I'd also repeat a request for comments on standardizing which corner
0%,0% gets tied to for the display modules & ps.map. Right now it's
about 50/50 top-left/bottom-left.

This stuff makes learning new modules that little bit harder.

Solution: a more prescriptive SUBMITTING/best practices file.



Hamish