[GRASS-dev] Making start of GRASS GIS easier for newcomers

[Vaclav Petras]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 4:39 PM, Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org> wrote:

> > For newcomers/no rc file: how about creating a new GRASS GIS database
> > in $HOME,
>
> +1
>
> > in there a new location with EPSG:4326 (latlong wgs84), the
> > empty PERMANENT mapset will be created automatically. Does not apply
> > to MS Windows, because the demolocation is created during
> > installation.
>
> In theory the demolocation could be everywhere since it is part of the
> source code and even contains a world map.
>
> In theory, copying the demolocation should be easy. I'm just afraid that
it will be hard to implement it, to get all the conditions and rights right
and to debug it. However, since on MS Windows, the mechanism will not be
used much, it is possible that some bugs will not need solving. See below,
for one issue which is currently present and is even more important for
this proposed functionality then for the current one.


> > Why not having a minimal welcome screen with a dropdown list for
> > existing locations and a dropdown list for existing mapsets in the
> > selected location, plus a prominent OK button and a change/manage
> > button, nothing else?
>
> +1
> At FOSDEM, we discussed this issue and most discussion participants
> thought exactly in this direction.


I wish I could be there. I still think that improving what we have now is a
better way that, at expense of advanced users, try to hide the complexity
which cannot be avoided at the end. It seems to me that everybody is so
annoyed by the 64 startup behavior that changing everything seems as an
only option. However, I think that just small improvements here and there
are better in this case. Complete revamp of startup with focus on first
time users may easily create unsatisfied second time users.

I don't want to name all changes I've done but let's take example of the
recent ones. The message which was originally in an error dialog is now
just a red text in the main window (r64407). In r64408 I removed the text
in command line which required user to "Hit RETURN" which may be easy to do
once you understand what that you should press Enter but interacting with
command line is probably what you don't want the first time user to do. See
old and new state of GRASS right after running `grass` command (left old,
right new state).

There is one bug in the startup I was not really looking at, yet. In
grass.py there is some dummy rc file created and GISDBASE is set to current
working directory ($HOME in 64 seems a bit more reasonable). This file is
loaded in gis_set.py where value for Location (<UNKNOWN>) is used to show
the first-time-user "create location" warning/message. However, GISDBASE is
used used anyway to fill the corresponding input field which is quite
confusing. Should GUI respect whatever is in rc file or should it consider
rc file with <UNKNOWN> for Location as invalid? In other words, how to
recognize the state of first time user when a message about creating
grassdata should be shown (or in the future, grassdata and demolocation
created automatically)?

Vaclav

http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/64407
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/64408
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/trunk/lib/init/grass.py?rev=64408#L502
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/trunk/lib/init/grass.py?rev=37863#L331
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/branches/releasebranch_6_4/lib/init/init.sh?rev=55970#L435
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