[GRASS-dev] New splash screen for GRASS GIS 7?

[Helena Mitasova]

On Jan 21, 2015, at 2:16 PM, Moritz Lennert wrote:

> On 21/01/15 19:35, Markus Neteler wrote:
>> 
>> On Jan 21, 2015 6:56 PM, "Vaclav Petras" <wenzeslaus at gmail.com
>> <mailto:wenzeslaus at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org
>> <mailto:neteler at osgeo.org>> wrote:
>> > > The "project" has been introduced in the past to de-confuse user
>> > > coming from "other" GIS.
>> > > "Location" alone is not quite clear I fear.
>> >
>> > I see the motivation but random rename of one thing at one place is
>> just adding to confusion. If we need explanation, then we need something
>> like explanation in some less prominent color, similarly to what is in
>> GUI elsewhere (see attachment). Broad rename is out of question I guess.
>> >
>> > Project is very ambiguous, it is location, mapset or GUI workspace?
>> For me project is usually mapset, sometimes in combination with GUI
>> workspace and this how I explain that to people.
>> 
>> In my opinion we should not have the location selection dialog at all.
>> Revolution!
>> 
>> We should start GRASS right away in latlong like most GIS in the world.
>> 
>> Then let the user open the dialog to change projection if desired from
>> inside.
>> 
>> This would avoid a lot of questions right away.
> 
> Please don't do this ! I find the fact that GRASS does not provide a default projection system, but forces the user to think about projection from the start, one of its strengths, both for work and for teaching.

Moritz - that won't be lost, I agree that it is a very important GRASS feature.

 The concept of location/mapset remains, but they will have to start thinking about it once they start GRASS,
not before they even open it. In my class when we go through starting GRASS step-by-step, the students are fine (although there is 
still the problem that some unzip apps create an extra directory when unzipping the files automatically which people don't notice),
but when in workshops or when on their own I have seen users struggling to get GRASS even open because they give it wrong path
(e.g., to the location rather than gis directory) or they don't know what to select and whether to create a new location or new mapset.
I am not sure how well the approach of selecting the location from within GRASS will work, but I am willing to give it a try.
I have just written the chapter on creating new locations and reprojecting data in GRASS for the 4th edition of grassbook so I will have to rewrite it,
but this also made me aware of how cumbersome the startup page may be for new users. 

On the other hand I just discovered how easy and elegant is to start GRASS from command line and skip the startup screen altogether.

I am not pushing strongly for this change - we can try this first in our lab on real-world projects with newcomers and experienced users
and see whether it would help or whether it would cause even more confusion,

Helena


> 
> Moritz
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