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

[Vaclav Petras]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 5:28 AM, Moritz Lennert <
mlennert at club.worldonline.be> wrote:

> 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.
>
> Put this to GUI is certainly needed but challenging and I it will not be
included in 7.0. Perhaps we should put this to the manual in some way. But
modules are not using it anyway.

Anyway, these "at least one required" are causing Required section to be
less and less used, so that's another reason why it makes sense to leave it
out sometimes.


> 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'.
>
> I think that the opposite is true. Having 'optional' in Required section
would defeat the purpose of Required section. And if we consider that
options which are in group "one of them required" are spread in other
sections than Required, then putting standard 'required' options to other
sections is nothing new.

And yes, we need to go a simpler road for now.

Vaclav

>
> Moritz
>
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