[GRASS-dev] Re: WinGrass testing results 6.3.0rc2

[Michael Barton]

This helps a LOT. I think it also explains why NVIZ doesn't work (although I
don't understand why it DOES work on some systems). NVIZ is launched from a
script. IIRC, there at least some scripts get *.bat equivalents. Is/was this
the case for the script named "nviz"? Everyone here has installed mysys as
suggested in the README. But it is nice to know that it is NOT needed. The
problem then is that you can't run any of the scripts and some of these are
important.

If I understand you correctly, if we modify the grass63.bat to make sure
that it correctly indicates the location of mysys (we are just installing it
in the default location), scripts (including nviz) *should* run.

Another question for the general group here. I'm about to try to convince a
classroom lab manager to put this on the computers in the lab. Is there any
problem to installing mysys in a tightly managed lab environment? Are we
likely to run into any permission problems trying to run GRASS in such an
environment (i.e., where students do not have write permission outside their
own home directories)?

Michael


On 11/27/07 9:07 AM, "Moritz Lennert" <mlennert at club.worldonline.be> wrote:

> On 27/11/07 16:35, Michael Barton wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 11/27/07 3:25 AM, "Moritz Lennert" <mlennert at club.worldonline.be> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 27/11/07 11:07, Paul Kelly wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007, Benjamin Ducke wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>>>> NVIZ won?t launch (but did in a recent binary)
>>>>> This can be somewhat tricky. For me, it fails to launch from within
>>>>>  the MSYS shell
>>> I cannot confirm this: If I launch grass using /c/grass/bin/grass63
>>> (i.e. the shell launch script, not the .bat), nviz works perfectly for
>>> me, both from the gui and from the comand line.
>>> 
>>> (You have to change the definition of GISBASE from c:/ syntax to /c/
>>> syntax for it to work...I've corrected this in the wingrass6.3RC2
>>> package now
>> 
>> Not sure I understand this.
> 
> The above is for those who want to launch grass from within an msys
> terminal window.
> 
>> How can you launch GRASS from a command line in
>> Windows? How do you get a command line to launch it from?
> 
> For normal users (who do not work with msys as their terminal - you
> don't even need msys installed to do this):
> 
> - Open Start menu -> Run command -> type cmd.exe
> - In cmd.exe type c:\PathToGrassFolder\bin\grass63.bat
> - If you then want to launch the gis manager, type gis.m
> 
>> 
>> Probably a good idea to always run it from the *.bat file during development
>> to make sure it works that way, since that's how most people will run it.
> 
> Yes, but just as in the other environments you can run grass in windows
> as a command line or a gui application (or both).
> 
>> 
>>>>> as well as a sh.exe started via Window's cmd.exe.
>>> Could you be more precise as to what exactly you are doing ? Do you
>>> launch grass via grass63.bat and then launch sh.exe within a running
>>> grass session ?
>>> 
>>>> That might be because the Msys shell doesn't recognise a .bat file
>>>> (in this case nviz.bat) as an executable and/or can't run it. What
>>>> happens if you add the GRASS scripts directory ($GISBASE/scripts
>>>> IIRC) to your path? Then it should pick up the nviz shell script that
>>>> will (should be???) installed in there.
>>> If you run grass in msys you have to run the grass63 file which then
>>> calls Init.sh which sets the path to the scripts directory.
>> 
>> Again, I'm not sure how one actually does this. Is there a problem of which
>> gets launched first--mysys or TclTk?
> 
> Ok, let's clear things up a bit (and yes, I know I should do this on the
> wiki ASAP):
> 
> The general philosophy of the windows port of grass is that it should be
> a completely native application, with no need of any kind of *nix
> emulation. For most of grass this is now possible, which means all you
> need to install to run grass is tcltk and my binary package. Nothing
> else, not even msys !
> 
> On that basis you can launch grass either by clicking on the grass63.bat
>   file or by launching it from the command line as explained above. As
> in other environments, the choice of GRASS_GUI is stored in the
> .grassrc6 file which is stored by default in the %USERPROFILE%
> directory, which normally defaults to C:\Documents and
> Settings\username. So, you can change GRASS_GUI to text and grass will
> open in text mode, even if you click on the grass63.bat file.
> 
> What does not work in this setup are the many scripts as these are shell
> scripts and thus need a *nix-like shell environment to run, including a
> series of tools such as sed, awk, etc. If you need those, you can
> install msys in order to have a shell (sh.exe) and the necessary tools.
> Edit the grass63.bat file in order to set the path to where you
> installed msys (e.g. c:\msys\bin and c:\msys\lib) and to sh.exe. Now you
> should be able to run most scripts.
> 
> For those who would like to get the *nix look and feel in windows, they
> can do so by launching GRASS directly from within an msys shell (opened
> by going into the Start menu -> Applications ->Msys). But as this is a
> *nix emulation, you have to use the grass63, not the grass63.bat file to
> start grass (both are in the same directory). There used to be a problem
> with path syntax in the grass63 file (as explained above), but I
> corrected this this morning.
> 
> I hope this clarifies the issue a bit.
> 
> Moritz

__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
Director of Graduate Studies
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