[GRASS5] New GIS Manager version

[neteler at itc.it]

[Reposting this message:
 this message got trapped in the spam filter, it's from September]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 09:26:05AM -0700, Michael Barton wrote:
> Otto,
> 
> Thanks very much for your comments. See below.
> 
> Michael
> ______________________________
> 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
> 
> 
> > From: Otto Dassau <dassau at gdf-hannover.de>
> > Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:21:07 +0200
> > To: <grass5 at grass.itc.it>
> > Subject: Re: [GRASS5] New GIS Manager version
> > 
> > Am Freitag, 16. September 2005 03:16 schrieb Michael Barton:
> >> I©öve just committed a fairly major update to the GIS Manager to the cvs for
> >> GRASS 6.1.
> > 
> > Hi Michael,
> > 
> > I tested some of the new features in the d.m and like it very much. Thanks a
> > lot for your work!
> > 
> >> It is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But it still has a number of
> >> new features that I hope will continue to make the many functions of GRASS
> >> more accessible. I©öve also posted it to my website at
> >> 
> >> <http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton/files/grass_gismgr/>
> >> 
> >> The file is GIS_manager050912.tgz
> >> 
> >> It includes a replacement $GISBASE/etc/dm directory with all files and a
> >> new script, d.out.file, for the $GISBASE/scripts directory.
> >> 
> >> One of the main features of the GIS Manager update is that all major
> >> display functions are now GIS Manager layers with options panels. This
> >> makes them much easier to manipulate AND to save in workspaces. All options
> >> panels now have integrated help buttons.
> > 
> > This is a great idea, and it works well, but I think another button maybe with
> > a simple question mark and not the green grass logo on it would be more
> > intuitive. I know, there is already a similar button to query maps. So maybe
> > a button with an "i" for information would make sense?
> > 
> 
> I think people can get used to the grass help button in the panels pretty
> quickly, but I have no problem adding a question mark. BUT we would need to
> agree on a new icon for query. Does an "i" work for everyone--including
> people whose native language is NOT english? This follows the ESRI and QGIS
> usage. I'm open to other query icon suggestions.
> 
> 
> 
> >> I also added a print to default
> >> printer via lpr in the file menu. This lets you print what you see on the
> >> screen (assuming your default printer is configured correctly).
> > 
> > Here I get following error message:
> > lpr: error - unable to access "print.png" - No such file or directory
> > 
> > there was no file print.png in the current directory or on my machine...
> 
> This is fixed in the cvs
> 
> > 
> >> New updates 
> >> to ps.map recently committed to the cvs provide another way to get nice
> >> printed output. Note that the printer icon remains a link to print ONLY
> >> some raster, vector, and label files via ps.map.
> >> 
> >> The new format made the old ©ødisplay©÷ menu redundant and it has been
> >> removed (although all modules and their TclTk interactive dialogs are still
> >> available from the command line).  This led to a little rearrangement of
> >> the menu structure. Several items have moved to file: primarily gis file
> >> management functions (this was a suggestion a long time back).
> > 
> >> The GIS menu  (which some people didn©öt like) has changed to a configuration
> >> menu. 
> > 
> > good idea
> > 
> >> Slope  
> >> arrows in raster cells moved to raster/terrain and histograms moved to
> >> image/reports and stats. The remaining entries from the old display menu
> >> that are not in other locations or GIS Manager layers are primarily for
> >> programming (d.linegraph).
> > 
> > I tested some buttons.
> > 
> > RGB HIS button: 
> > 
> > - When I only choose 2 maps on the command line normally you get a message
> > like:  ERROR: Required parameter <blue> not set:
> > - using d.m you get a error message "child process exited abnormally" that
> > nobody understands.
> > 
> > Maybe in this context I find it difficult to use the interactive menus,
> > because you do not know, which parameter or map is needed and which is
> > optional. On the command line you get an error message that tells you, if you
> > missed a parameter or map name, but using the interactive menus, you get
> > mistakable error message as described above.
> > 
> > Maybe it would be helpfull to mark parameters that have to be set. And it
> > would be very helpful if the error messages are understandable.
> 
> TclTk errors are pretty incomprehensible unless you press the detail button,
> where it gives you more information than you want. I don't know how to
> change this, but would welcome help from someone more knowledgeable.
> 
> 
> >  
> >> The GIS Manager is somewhat more compact, with a new arrangement of
> >> functions: monitor control down the left side, general display controls and
> >> tools on the top toolbar and layers on bottom toolbar.
> > 
> > I like this a lot. To me the new arrangement makes sense!
> > 
> 
> Thanks. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to do this and I
> still feel it's a bit more of a hack than I'd like. But I'm glad you agree
> about the functionality.
> 
> >> I©öve also added 
> >> color. Grey is OK for the eyes, but grey on grey is hard to see and pretty
> >> dull. Grass is green, so the GIS Manager is green.
> > 
> > as mentioned before, would it be possible to offer the user to change the
> > color? I think it is a matter of taste, but not everybody will like this, I
> > guess. For me it looks a bit too flashy.
> > 
> 
> This requires someone to write a GIS Manager configuration window that could
> be called from the config menu. It's possible, but I don't know how to do
> it. I will think about it when I have a bit more time.
> 
> 
> >> The new script (d.out.file) replaces and expands d.out.png. It makes it
> >> easy to save the current display monitor to various graphic file formats
> >> (along with PNG and PNM, it adds JPEG, TIF, and BMP with compression
> >> options for PNG and JPEG). It uses the GRASS PNG driver and gdal because
> >> they come with all GRASS installations. Other utilities (e.g., netpbm and
> >> imagemagick) have more options but are not required for a GRASS
> >> installation.
> > 
> > The script is in the CVS but not added to the Makefile, so it is not copied
> > during the make install command.
> > 
> 
> Fixed in the cvs
> 
> >> Let me know what works and what doesn©öt. Several members of the developers
> >> list have helped me test it pretty thoroughly, but I probably missed
> >> something somewhere.
> > 
> > it is really fun playing around with the display manager and the new
> > arrangement of tools make it more intuitive, at least for me.
> 
> I'm glad that it's easier to use. That's the goal.
> 
> Cheers
> Michael
> 
> 
> > 
> > thanks a lot
> >    Otto
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
>