[GRASS-dev] ps.map consolidation

[Moritz Lennert]

On Fri, March 2, 2007 23:25, roger at spinn.net wrote:
>
> I have a rudimentary GUI for ps.map written as a TCL/TK script.  It works
> by
> reading the content of the monitor and using that content to construct a
> basic input file for ps.map.  The GUI (which, as I said is pretty
> rudimentary) allows the user to view and edit instructions in the input
> file, to insert elements like eps files and to use options like line
> styles
> that aren't supported on the GRASS monitor.  It uses xpdf a previewer.
> xpdf
> is fairly fast and has a remote server mode that allows the user to update
> the preview without restarting the viewer.  It is distributed under the
> GNU
> public license by Glyph and Cog, LLC ;
> http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/home.html

Would you be willing to publish your script on the GRASS add-ons wiki
(http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/GRASS_AddOns) ?

Moritz
>
> The grass developers may not want to introduce a dependency on xpdf, but I
> encourage you to do something to give ps.map a friendlier front end.  The
> benefit is tremendous.  Having even a simple interactive ability to
> develop
> better graphics within the grass environment improved the quality of my
> products and decreased the time necessary to produce them.
>
>
> Roger Miller
>
> Glynn Clements writes:
>
>>
>> J-B�chym �epick� wrote:-A
>>
>>> another point: How to write GUI for ps.map, so it is usable for the
>>> user. Several approaches are possible:
>>>
>>> Drawing boxes for legend, measure, text and so on, so the user has at
>>> least idea about where and how the object will be placed on the paper.
>>>
>>> Another sollution would be, if we would copy the map display approach:
>>> render separate layer for each map instruction in the temporary file
>>> and put them together in the map display. User could than take a mouse
>>> and position each object interactively.
>>>
>>> We would need support of transparency for this... Does ps.map support
>>> creation of transparent files?
>>
>> ps.map creates PostScript files. If you use Ghostscript's "pngalpha"
>> driver, the resulting PNG file will have a transparent background. But
>> then you would need to convert the PNG files to PPM/PGM (that's all
>> that g.pnmcomp understands), and you would need to manually
>> re-composite those files whenever the relative position changes.
>>
>> Personally, I don't see the point in a ps.map GUI; this task is better
>> suited to general-purpose DTP software.
>>
>> --
>> Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>
>>
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