[GRASS5] starting discussion on next generation UI

[Paolo Cavallini]

Hi all.
I applaud Michael for rising the question. My personal feelings from a 
professional user prespective:

At 22:54, venerdì 29 luglio 2005, Michael Barton has probably written:
>
> - - - WISH LIST FOR GRASS UI - - -
>
> 1. I think GRASS should continue to have its own integral, default
> UI‹although the beauty of an open source tool like this is that is can also
> be incorporated into other projects and UI¹s. The recent GRASS user survey
> suggests that most GRASS users also want an integral UI for GRASS

Do not agree. Qgis as an interface has unparalleled ease of use, a strong 
community and fast developmente, and features of paramount importance (one 
for all: point-and-click printing). My suggestion is to channel efforts in 
this direction. With very limited work we can have all common GRASS commands 
available in qgis. This has the important advantage of enlarging the user 
base for grass (one long-standing problem), smoothing the learning curve 
(notoriously the main obstacle for the adoption of grass in many real-world 
situations).

> 2 . We need to maintain a command line interface (for power users and for
> scripting) AND have a graphical UI

Agreed fully.

> 5. I wonder if there is a way to seamlessly combine NVIZ-like visualization
> with the Œstandard¹ displays so that all displays have the potential for
> 2.5D and 3D display and we don¹t have to run a special visualization
> module?

I believe NVIZ requires a more or less complete rewriting. Current version is 
rather fragile (it is probably the GRASS command that required most 
troubleshooting, at least in our installations), and does not use advanced 
visualization features now present in all graphic cards.

> 8. Users should be able to customize the UI to some extent, so that they
> could have the tools they use most often easily accessible, but wouldn¹t
> always have to wade through the entire tool set.

Agreed.

All the best.
pc
-- 
Paolo Cavallini
cavallini at faunalia.it   www.faunalia.it   www.faunalia.com
Piazza Garibaldi 5 - 56025 Pontedera (PI), Italy   Tel: (+39)348-3801953