[GRASS-dev] Applying in GSOC 2012

[Mohit Kumar]

Sir,
I have just given some suggestions from the view of a user of GRASS on 
how to improve it GUI further.
My response is below:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:32:19 -0600, Michael Barton wrote:
> Mohit,
>
> Can you explain what you mean a little more clearly.
I just gave the suggestions that came in my mind.
>
> What is "window flooding"? If you mean that there are a lot of
> windows, this is a consequence of each GRASS module launching its own
> independent GUI dialog. This is done because a significant number of
> people like to launch modules from the command line rather than from
> the integrated GUI. It might be nice to have an option that windows
> would close automatically when a module is run unless a 'run and stay
> open' box was checked, or something like that. This would have the
> biggest impact on reducing window clutter.
By "window flooding" I meant exactly the same, for every module there 
is a separate GUI dialog which becomes very untidy and then every dialog 
has to be closed manually. What I thought about it is we can make a 
single gui which has a fixed widget to display the image, and every 
image will be in a different tab. Even if one launches a module from 
command line it will open as a tab in the integrated GUI. We will also 
give an option to the user if he wants to open the module in new window. 
This was the idea of an integrated GUI.
>
> What do you mean by an integrated GUI? GRASS has an integrated GUI.
> How would you change this? Redoing the GUI in something other than
> wxPython would take a LOT of time, and would probably present a
> problem in being maintainable by the development team. Swipe features
> could be very nice. How would you create these in wxPython so that
> they would operate across all OS platforms? Emulating ArcGIS is not
> necessarily an improvement to the user experience. A PostGIS manager
> could be quite nice. Again, how would you implement this in wxPython
> across all OS platforms?
Swipe feature will be a new dialog that will have to widgets lying one 
on another having an image each. The width of the upper widget will be 
resizable from zero to length of bottom widget, the bar adjusting the 
width will act as a slider. This feature will be very useful in 
comparing any two layers(pictures at different timestamp). To implement 
this in wxPyhton is not very tough according to me. You can see it 
implemented here 
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html.
PostGIS manager was yet another idea, like a PostGIS manager in Quantum 
GIS. PyGreSQL is a python module that allows easy use of database 
operation API from a pyhton script. So it will be like a wrapper over 
the database. This can be done using wxPython and will be OS 
independent.
>
> This all sounds like several SOC projects instead of one. It would
> probably be better if you picked one and sketched it out in more
> detail.
All these were the basic ideas, for deciding the one to propose for 
SOC, I will need a mentor and feedback to guide me and make a proposal 
from the ideas.

>
> Michael
>
>
> _____________________
> C. Michael Barton
> Visiting Scientist, Integrated Science Program
> National Center for Atmospheric Research &
> University Consortium for Atmospheric Research
> 303-497-2889 (voice)
>
> Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
> Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
> Arizona State University
> www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu


Regards,
Mohit Kumar
Lab For Spatial Informatics
International Institute of Information and Technology
Hyderabad, India
+9.1-9.7.0.3.8.4.0.1.7.5.