[GRASS-dev] impressions on wx GUI

[Michael Barton]

On 4/12/07 9:35 AM, "Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann" <carlos.grohmann at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I just installed the prototype of wx GUI. It's looking good! nice work!
> 
> - some impressions:
> 
> I guess the display is working nice, it's fast. although most people
> coming from other GIS wants a display where you don't have to ask it
> to draw the maps. If you de-select one map, it would automatically
> draw the underlying layer (like QGIS).

This is doable. However, there was discussion on this point for the current
TclTk gui (where it is also doable). The majority of the responders
preferred to be able to add and manage layers without waiting for a redraw
for each change. They preferred to control redraw.

> 
> Multiple selection of layers in GIS Manager. If you want to delete
> several layers, it is a pain to do it one by one.

Duly noted. Multiple drag and drop is more difficult however.

> 
> Also some right-click would be nice. it could open a menu with options
> like delete, info, colors...

Definitely agree. We've discussed adding these when basic features are
working well. For example, a contextual menu for a display might list
various zoom options, redraw, etc.

> 
> IMO a slider for transparency is easier to play with. maybe we could
> have both the slider and the numerical value, maybe in one of the
> right-click options.

I tried the sliders and they looked bad (at least on my Mac) and took up an
inordinate amount of space. A bonus of the spin controls is that you can
type values into them too.

> 
> Enable the overlay option for rasters as a default.

This requires a custom options dialog because it actually calls d.his. I
think this is a very handy feature. But right now, we're using the
autogenerated dialogs for each command to save time getting the GUI up and
running--and these are actually quite nice. We've talked some about custom
properties dialogs in the future.

> 
> Maybe make the font size in the dialogs smaller? I get the feeling
> that it is too big, with too much space between the components.

This is using  your default system font. One problem with specifying fonts
in detail is that they may look funny or even not work on different systems.
Currently, I think the font is 11 point, which is a pretty good compromise
on most systems. Which part looks especially large to you?

> 
> If I am in the "output" tab of GI manager, and add a new
> raster/vector, I should be sent back to the "layers" tab.

Good idea

Thanks for testing
Michael

> 
> that's it for now.
> 
> Carlos
> 

__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity
Arizona State University

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