[GRASS5] New gui.tcl

[Michael Barton]

Cedric,

I'm still trying to digest all of this. Does this mean that there are new
options I can invoke when launching modules from the gis.m menu?

Thanks for this great piece of work.

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

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton



> From: Cedric Shock <cedricgrass at shockfamily.net>
> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:14:52 -0800
> To: <grass5 at grass.itc.it>
> Subject: [GRASS5] New gui.tcl
> 
> Fellow developers,
> 
> There is a new gui.tcl in CVS, along with associated icons, and much more
> extensive documentation. The new version was submitted in two steps, the
> first of which was posted in the thread "New gui.tcl generic user interface".
> This is to make the changes between versions clearer.
> 
> 
> There are changes that would affect programs "subclassing" or overriding
> gui.tcl procs:
> 
> The programming interface for overriding pieces of gui.tcl has changed. I
> don't believe anyone was doing this, but if you were check out
> grass6/lib/gis/README.GUI. It includes migrating instructions.
> 
> The layout has been abstracted out of the rest of the program. This would
> allow it to be overridden easily.
> 
> 
> The following programming side (d.m, gis.m) changes have been made. I plan on
> making small examples of how to use these.
> 
> The arrangement of components, like buttons and progress bar and command label
> etc are all separated into different procs. This makes it very easy to get a
> dialog without these features instead of very difficult. (Before it was
> necessary to reimplement other parts of the program logic)
> 
> A program sourcing gui.tcl can use dialog_get_command $dlg and
> dialog_set_command $dlg $cmd to get and set the command being edited in the
> dialog. The command is set and retrieved in tcl argv style list form.
> 
> It is now able to make dialogs in containers that aren't toplevel windows.
> 
> 
> The following cosmetic or user side changes have been made:
> 
> Icons all come from etc/gui/icon (no more bwidgets folder). It doesn't crash
> when core icons are missing. Icons have been added to the output to indicate
> success / failure of the run command
> 
> The run button is disabled while a command is running.
> 
> The answer provided for flags is used to set whether they are on or off.
> 
> 
> What we can do with this:
> Have multiple different layouts for user interfaces to programs and user
> choice as to what to use (currently there is only one)
> 
> Use these created dialogs inside panes in gis.m or d.m
> 
> Start setting guisections on other modules to get more elaborate layouts.
> 
> 
> 
> The current version also includes all of these changes (which occurred
> immediately before):
> 
> Options and Output are now displayed in tabs instead of panes
> 
> There is a new command label which shows the current command as it is edited.
> It has a button for copying the command to the clipboard. (Might be worth
> noting in wish 2074)
> 
> Programs reporting guisections will have a tab made for options in each
> toplevel section. Finer section grouping is obeyed, but no labels are created
> or displayed.
> 
> The options frames scroll with the mouse wheel.
> 
> If possible the window opens wide enough to display its contents. This is
> accomplished by adding a binding to the scrolled frames which report their
> widths to their parent frames.
> 
> Programs using the label and description attributes on options or tabs will
> now have the description displayed as balloon help.
> 
> The help button is not enabled if no help file exists for the program. (closes
> wish 3799)
> 
> The type and required text for options is displayed right justified.
> 
> Module information is displayed differently. Both the label and description
> are displayed if available. Module is displayed with an icon if a matching
> one can be found in $(GISBASE)/etc/icons. See /gui/icons/README for more
> information.
> 
> Buttons for file selection are displayed with an open file icon.
> 
> --Cedric Shock
>