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

[Yann Chemin]

On 22 January 2015 at 03:25, Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 8:16 PM, Moritz Lennert
> <mlennert at club.worldonline.be> wrote:
> > On 21/01/15 19:35, Markus Neteler wrote:
> >> 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 !
>
> OK, now being back from phone to a real keyboard, I can write a few more
> lines.
>
> I am thinking about this issue for seeral years meanwhile (hint: I
> started in 1993 to use the software, getting stuck at the text start
> screen not having a manual :-).
>
> So my full suggestions are
> - beautify the actual screen (hence my recent suggestion which is
> lively discussed here),
> - optionally (!) allow to start GRASS without welcome/loc/mapset
> screen but to open it in LatLong as described above. Again, as an
> option. We could implement that in trunk and see how it goes. All the
> tools to select locations, projections and such are there.
>
> I can concur on the feeling of being lost but most students. What about a
grass70 -b flag for "beginner" or something like this. That means we can
work through the discovery straight "out of the box". It would be even
easier to have a MSWin Icon using that option installed on the desktop
directly, if we are looking at lowering the entry/discovery level. It could
have a "beginner' infographic to direct new users to this one first.


> > 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.
>
> On of it strenghts, yes. But I have been teaching GRASS a lot to GIS
> professionals who got trained on different systems. And many asked
> "why this screen? why cannot you just start like the other GIS"? And I
> tend to agree (again: optionally). The point is that we, on the
> contrary to many other GIS, still have all the control mechanisms in
> place which avoid that the user mixes projections. So that's all fine.
>
> Also in Portland at the FOSS4G conf (where I showcased GRASS GIS 7)
> people suggested to let 'em get into the system right away. They
> explained to me that a newcomer wants to see the menu to understand
> how powerful the system is. But they would get stuck at the welcome
> screen... Yes, and they don't want to think before they open the
> program but "just try", out of curiosity.
>
> Perhaps we should move this discussion to a different thread and leave
> this to the splash/welcome screen modernization.
>
> Best
> Markus
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