[GRASS-dev] Re: a better console and better diff

[Michael Barton]

On Dec 16, 2009, at 6:55 PM, grass-dev-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

> Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:25:09 +0100
> From: Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] Re: a better console and better diff
> To: Tim Michelsen <timmichelsen at gmx-topmail.de>
> Cc: grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID:
>        <f8fe65c40912161225v319a437fr64aaf8a035dfedbe at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Hi,
> 
> 2009/12/16 Tim Michelsen <timmichelsen at gmx-topmail.de>:
>>>> I personally don't mind separate input and output windows.
>> -1
>> I would like to see:
>> 1 Tab for the layer manager, 2dn tab for the command window.
>> 
>> Maybe there could be the option to optionally redirect the output into a
>> text file in
>> /tmp/grass.log?
>> 
>>> I think that separate windows make more sense, but it's worth allowing
>>> the input window to be a multi-line field with line-wrap and vertical
>>> scrolling, rather than a single-line field with horizontal scrolling.
>>> The latter can be annoying when entering long commands.
>> +1
> 
> wxGUI should support also MDI [1]. More then two windows in SDI could
> be too many...
> 
> +1 add support for MDI

-1 for MDI. Most modern software has abandoned the multiple document interface. It means creating a smaller desktop-like window and putting all the program windows into this smaller desktop. So there is less room to see the windows than if they are just on your desktop. This is especially bad on a laptop, where you must be constantly moving the windows around or shrinking them to see them. An MDI had some advantages for organizing the windows of a multi-window program into a single box that you can move or hide. However, both Linux and Mac have multi-desktop features (I don't know about Windows 7), so an MDI no longer offers any organizational advantage on modern OS GUI's. wxPython has an MDI, one of their older widgets. For GRASS to implement it as an option, it would require another layer of interface programming.

If we do anything to make it possible to move the control window (layer manager and console) with a display window, I'd recommend using AUI to allow the control window to be docked with the display window. However, this too would require substantial reprogramming of the display window (I've looked into it. Doable but a major pain to create and debug). Also, if you want to open more than one display, do you simply keep a master control (what we have now) docked to one display or try to duplicate the control for each display? The latter is like ArcGIS (and some people seem to long for), but it takes up considerable screen real estate for unnecessary duplication of function. It's something to look into for the future, but IMHO we still have things that are not working to fix (Windows access to vdigit and wxnviz), things to finish (wxnviz), and important features that are still missing and need to be added (GUI replacements for i.class and i.ortho.photo, for example). 

> +1 keep two windows (Map Display and Layer Manager) in SDI (sure you
> can open more Map Displays)

+1 for me too. 

> +1 keep separated command prompt and log area as different widgets

+0 If this is OK with command line users, I'm happy to go with it. When I get some time to work on it later this week or next, I'll try an STC version of the input widget for folks to try.

Michael