[GRASS-dev] Re: #339: d.mon doesn't work (WinGrass commandline)

[Paul Kelly]

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008, Glynn Clements wrote:

> Except that d.mon isn't specific to XDRIVER, nor is the lack of
> monitors on Windows.
>
> And AFAICT, the legacy display architecture was originally designed
> for Tektronix 41xx (and similar) terminals; X support came later.

Yes I think so too - IIRC in the 1987 GRASS promotional video you see an 
example of GRASS being used with a standalone graphics terminal.

How about for GRASS 7 on all platforms, turning d.mon into a script that 
runs an image display program that initialises the image it displays from 
GRASS_PNGFILE and automatically refreshes the display when the file is 
modified? If the display program was simple (I guess a very simple 
cross-platform PNG viewer might not be too difficult to implement?) it 
could be included in the GRASS source code and would be convenient for 
people to use all their favourite non-interactive d.* commands without 
having to run the GUI.

If there was a bit more intelligence built into it (would need a d.mon 
server process running to communicate with the viewers I suppose) 
replacements for d.where and d.measure etc. could also be implemented.

Paul