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

[Blumentrath, Stefan]

Even if there are probably already more proposals out there than I can count, here is yet another idea, which is a kind of intermediate solution between the minimalistic and classic approach:
What about simplifying/reducing the Welcome-screen significantly as follows:
1) keep the two lists for selecting Locations and Mapsets (probably with a pre-selected combination), but not the buttons to their right. Compo-boxes would require extra clicks and being able to see available choices at once should not be a problem for newbies (as they have most likely only the demo-location). For those who have more locations and mapsets, the current solution with lists is likely to be significantly more convenient.
2) Remove the "Select GRASS GIS database directory" section.
3) have only three buttons: "Start", "Cancel", and "Manage GRASS GIS database". The latter button can then provide all other functionality (selection of database directory, create or delete Locations and mapsets). In practice it would probably be a "go back to classic welcome screen button"... That way the solution gets quite close to Markus M`s proposal (with only 5 elements in probably 3 groups (plus banner) left on the welcome screen), while keeping the probably most frequently used functionality at the surface.
Finally, things (GUI elements) could be arranged on the screen in a left-to-right work-(mouse-)flow: Location -> Mapset -> Button

The rational behind this proposal is, that switching between locations and mapsets is something probably more common (and choosing a location and mapset has to do be done always even if one accepts a default). So that functionality should be directly and easily accessible at startup. Creating new locations and mapsets and especially changing the GRASS database directory is something people probably do less often. So here one additional click with a "Manage GRASS DB" button is maybe not that painful for second-time-users?! But I am afraid this is also just another way of having two parallel/alternative startups...

Cheers
Stefan


-----Original Message-----
From: grass-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:grass-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Markus Neteler
Sent: 3. februar 2015 21:16
To: Markus Metz
Cc: Helena Mitasova; Martin Landa; C Michael Barton; GRASS developers list
Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] Making start of GRASS GIS easier for newcomers

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:50 PM, Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork at gmail.com> wrote:
...
>
> A prototype for a minimal welcome screen actually exists in Settings
> -> GRASS working environment -> Change location and mapset.

Could anyone make this accessible at startup time with a flag? Then we could try out how it satisfies the group of "minimalistic startup screen" users in this discussion.

thanks
Markus
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