[GRASS-dev] default GUI

[Michael Barton]

On Sep 22, 2009, at 12:28 AM, grass-dev-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:00:36 +0200
> From: Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] default GUI
> To: Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>
> Cc: GRASS developers list <grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <f8fe65c40909212300g3e8cdf98ve17c746207ea3e9f at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Hi,
>
> 2009/9/22 Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>:
>
> [...]
>
>> What's the timescale for a 6.4.0 release? Is there enough time to
>> decouple the wx vdigit and nviz modules into separate programs? That
>> would eliminate the most likely source of major problems.
>
> I don't think that there is enough time to do that. First 6.4.0 RC
> 12/2008, the last (RC5) 7/2009, now we have end of September - it's
> seems to me as very very long time for RC stage. I was hoping that we
> could release 6.4.0 in April 2009 , then in June, ... and now in
> October. To have one year for RCs seems to me as too unacceptable
> time... I would be happy to see 6.4.0 out and discuss if we would be
> able to change release politics (releases more often, less RCs, etc.)
>
> Initially I was not thinking about wxGUI as default for 6.4.0. Few
> days ago some of devs/users started speaking about that. That's not up
> me to decide, I cannot compare stability/usability of wxGUI versus
> TCL/TK GUI. One of problem of the wxGUI are extensions which are not
> separated from the main program (e.g. local copy of PseudoDC is used
> when vector digitizer is available otherwise PseudoDC from wxPython is
> used which can cause problems sometimes, etc.).
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Martin Landa <landa.martin gmail.com> * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa

I agree with Martin on this. The wxPython GUI is certainly robust  
enough to be the default GUI for GRASS. But there are packaging and  
version issues that we need to solve in order to do this and not get  
flooded with reports of the GUI not starting or working correctly. We  
are close on these but not quite there.

We should fix as many outstanding bugs in the wxPython GUI as possible  
before a 6.4 stable release, but we should not hold up the release in  
order to switch default GUI's

FWIW, the TclTk GUI is also quite robust and can serve just fine for  
the default. The new one just does more and does it more elegantly.

Michael
______________________________
C. Michael Barton
Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
USA

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