[GRASS-dev] TclTk animator finished - replaces xganim

[Michael Barton]

On 9/14/07 3:28 AM, "Hamish" <hamish_nospam at yahoo.com> wrote:

> HB:
>>>  - why is there an Apply button?
> MB:
>> So you can set and change files to animate without closing the map select
>> window.
> 
> Would you ever really do that in practice (selectively add/remove frames)?
> To me 99% of the time Apply buttons seem like unneeded clutter & confusing.
> But
> then I don't like to work with a half dozen windows open at the same time for
> a
> single app., so maybe just a reflection of my preference. The "GPSMan"
> software
> was aweful for this, and I've got similar issues with the tcl gis.m-- but no
> better ideas about how to do it so I try to keep quiet about it. (Old version
> of star|open office was annoying in the other extreme of everything in 1
> window)
> 

Of course I've only tested this with hypothetical data so far--though I'll
be using real simulation output in the next few days.

But it was actually testing and resting to make me think of a possible
workflow where "apply" is useful. For example...

Start animator
Look at rast1 - rast99 series output
How does that compare with the oldrast series?
Add oldrast1 - oldrast99 into view 2 and hit apply
Hmmm. Comparison looks interesting. But what is actually happening in
oldrast50 - oldrast75. It's too small in the multiview window to see.
Clear out the prior entries and just put oldrast[50-75] into view 1. Hit
apply.
OK. Now I see. Is the same thing happening in rast50 - rast75?
replace oldrast in view1 with rast[50-75]. Hit apply.

Without apply, you hit OK and the map selection window closes. Then you have
to reopen it and enter from scratch when you want to change something. I
could rename apply to OK and have a close button. However, the OK button is
like a combination of OK and close, and is a default that is activated when
you hit the return key, which is also handy sometimes.

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

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