[GRASS-dev] No Required GUI section for g.list and g.remove

[Moritz Lennert]

On 14/10/14 10:38, Paulo van Breugel wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Moritz Lennert
> <mlennert at club.worldonline.be <mailto:mlennert at club.worldonline.be>> wrote:
>
>     On 14/10/14 09:14, Paulo van Breugel wrote:
>
>         Putting the 'ignore' option in  separate tab with patterns is fine I
>         think. Also, for g.remove to have the 'type' and 'name' together
>         in one
>         tab is also a good idea imho.
>
>         I am not sure I understand the last question; you mean to add the
>         possibility to make an option required but still have the option
>         to put
>         it in another section? I think that would be a good idea, not
>         only in
>         this case, but more in general, it would make it easier to create an
>         consistent interface for modules that require more than a few
>         inputs.
>         It might be a good idea to flag options as required, e.g., by adding
>         '(required)' after the option name?
>
>
>     I'm not sure I agree with this as this would leave the door open for
>     required flags to be disseminated across several sections. I like
>     the fact that the use immediately sees what is required to run the
>     module.
>
>
> I guess it is a matter of preference. There are some grey area or cases
> where this separate 'required' tab does not really work i.m.h.o.
>
> The '-f' flag in g.remove is one example. You can run the module without
> (so it shouldn't go in the 'required' tab), but you can't do what the
> module is basically meant to do without it, which is removing layers (so
> in that sense it should be a required choice).
>
> Perhaps a better example is r.random. One of the required options is the
> output layer. That can be a raster layer, a vector layer or both.
> Because of this construct, the required output name cannot be marked as
> required. Solution is to use a separate tab 'optional' where the user
> can provide the output name of the vector, raster or both layers. So the
> user has to fill in required information in a 'required tab' and an
> 'optional' tab. I don't think it is really problematic as failing to
> give the output name results in a clear error message, but it isn't
> exactly consistent.

The new options to declare parameters as mutually exclusive or as "at 
least one is requried of the group" might be a solution to that, but no 
idea how to implement this in the GUI.

If we want to go a simpler road, I think I would be more in favour of 
allowing some optional parameters in the required section (but marking 
them clearly as optional), than to move any required parameters to other 
sections than 'Required'.

Moritz