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

Wed Jan 21 22:43:19 PST 2015

I do understand, and feel the same way about it. There is a reason for the
set up to ask for these indeed, and it is definitely a better structure in
the long run for using it.

This raises the question of who will sit down and go through this, when any
other GIS just get to work. So yes, modifying the entry form is becoming
the most crucial part for the newcomer to stay (read?) and "open" the
software, or go and "just open" another one (Thinking about students
discovering OSGEO LiveDVD for example).

Can we propose (like it proposes a mapset with your login name) to make a
grassdata directory in the user directory, if this is not existing, and
start building on that? R does that for its Workspace creation.

On 22 January 2015 at 11:45, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton at asu.edu> wrote:

>  Beginners perhaps need to think about projections at the outset more so
> than advanced users. But I don’t think a ‘beginner’ and ‘advanced’ user
> version of the interface is a good idea. If we work out a way to simplify
> and/or streamline starting GRASS, it should just be the way the program
> works for all.
>
>  Michael
>            ____________________
>  C. Michael Barton
>  Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
>  Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
> Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science
>  Arizona State University
>
>  voice:  480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)
> fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC),  480-727-0709 (CSDC)
>  www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu
>
>
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>  On Jan 21, 2015, at 11:06 PM, Yann Chemin <ychemin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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>
> On 22 January 2015 at 11:30, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton at asu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>  This is a good start. Here are some suggestions for simplifying the
>> text even more.
>>
>>  =================================
>>
>>  [Select GRASS GIS database directory]
>>
>>  (make this a button rather than a text box with browse; no need to show
>> this path)
>>
>>  "A GRASS GIS database directory contains one or more Locations”
>>
>>  (no need to say that you can have more than one GISDBASE)
>>
>>  =================================
>>
>>  "All GIS data in a Location directory are in the same coordinate
>> reference system (projection). Locations contain Mapsets.”
>>
>>  OR
>>
>>  "All GIS data in a Location directory are in the same spatial
>> projection. Locations contain one or more Mapsets.”
>>
>>  (Locations are not necessarily related to ‘projects’. Mine are very
>> much projection based—e.g., I have a single latlon Location for ALL my
>> latlon data regardless of which research project it is used for. Do we need
>> to say “coordinate reference system (projection)”? Doesn’t just
>> “projection” cover it well enough? These are directories, so it might help
>> to say this.)
>>
>>   =================================
>>
>>  "A Mapset contains GIS data. Every Location automatically has one
>> Mapset named PERMANENT that also contains projection information for the
>> Location."
>>
>>  (A Mapset may or may not relate to one task; that depends on the user.
>> Some of mine do and some don’t. The ‘common data’ in PERMANENT is not
>> really important except in a multi-user setup, which is not what most
>> people use today. Mapsets are directories too, but as someone mentioned,
>> maybe we shouldn’t stress this in case someone tries to move stuff around
>> in a mapset. On the other hand, and unlike Arc, entire Locations and entire
>> Mapsets CAN be moved without any harm).
>>
>>  =================================
>>
>>
>>  I would not mess with trying to start GRASS without the standard
>> database/location/mapset that we have now in 7.0 until we have some time to
>> think it through and talk about it some. One easy to do thing would be to
>> add a button to this screen (instead of inside the location wizard only) to
>> create a latlon region and open GRASS in its PERMANENT mapset. But I’m not
>> even sure that this is a good way to go yet.
>>
>
>  Thus the idea of a starting flag "grass -b" to get a lat/long region and
> open a PERMANENT mapset. The whole thing can be a /tmp/random_name.
>
>>
>>  Michael
>>
>>
>>  On Jan 21, 2015, at 9:36 PM, grass-dev-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:
>>
>>  *From: *Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus at gmail.com>
>>  *To: *GRASS developers list <grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org>
>>  *Date: *January 21, 2015 at 9:35:40 PM MST
>>  *Subject: **Re: [GRASS-dev] Making start of GRASS GIS easier for
>> newcomers*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>  To satisfy everybody, I suggest to provide a buttons with something
>>> like "Take me to LL", "Take me to default location" and "Take me to XY".
>>> What do you think about that?
>>>
>>> But the real improvement should be the messages which would guide you
>>> through the process.
>>>
>>
>> So, here is screenshot and diff for new layout of the window together the
>> description what the things are useful for. The descriptions can be easily
>> changed, they are wrapped texts, so they will work well with translations.
>> So, feel free to suggest different ones. We can also make them "gray" as
>> suggested earlier.
>>
>>  I used GRASS Location and Location. I though that GRASS could help to
>> emphasize that it is something GRASS-related and few people were using
>> Location and Mapset with capital letter which could say that it is a
>> something like files format or spatial database name. I aimed to address
>> the things I considered confusing. I'm not sure about the GRASS GIS data
>> directory as I mentioned earlier.
>>
>>  Now it is higher then the old one but with removal of the image it will
>> be smaller. If a small-enough image is used, it could be the same. I would
>> like to not include the image to have more space for the error messages
>> (currently one line between GISDBASE and Location boxes), so messages can
>> be longer and perhaps some what to do next tips can be shown as well. The
>> position of this text can/should be changed, now middle of the window
>> (usually these are at the bottom or at the top). However, without image it
>> might be actually a little boring.
>>
>>  I reorganized the buttons to manage the (list of) Locations and (list
>> of) Mapsets, so now it looks like any other lists, e.g. in Simple Layer
>> Manager or in Cartographic Composer. In future we can add buttons, for
>> example unpack a zipped location or download sample datasets in case of
>> Locations and show existing maps button in case of Mapsets.
>>
>>  A "Skip" button can be added next to Start button, once implemented. I
>> think that XY location in /tmp/grassdata would be appropriate.
>>
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2015-January/073268.html
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-dev/2015-January/073266.html
>>   <startup_with_explanations.diff><startup_with_explanations.png>
>>
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