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

[Paulo van Breugel]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Maris Nartiss <maris.gis at gmail.com> wrote:

> This thread has exposed a problem with GRASS GIS - lack of clear
> vision (target auditory, "market niche").
>

Perhaps rather different visions... comes with being open source with an
active and open community

>
> I agree with Anna - startup screen is a problem only on the first time
> and it goes away with training. We must keep in mind that GRASS is
> more often launched not for the first time than for the first time -
> make it easy for daily use not "I am just astrosurfing" use.
>

+2.. really couldn't agree more

>
> If you have been trying AutoCAD, MicroStation, you would know -
> complex user interface, hard to run for the first time is not a
> problem - I see new "GIS" users using those two "GIS" programs every
> day and their count is not declining.
>
> Please, let's not try to compete with QGIS in ease of use, as we will
> lose due to lack of manpower and different goals (quality and power
> over ease of use). Spatial data is hard. High quality analysis is
> hard. Let's keep GRASS professional by providing easy way how to do it
> right (and not a easy way how to do it wrong).
>

The easy way to do it right.. one of the important reasons I started to use
GRASS and made me stick with it.

>
> I would suggest to add a launch wizard that would take user through
> location -> mapset etc. steps with nice explanations, etc. and nice
> chekcbox "Do not show this wizard next time" - thus first time runners
> would get their "let me google this for you" type hand holding, but it
> would be easy to keep powerful startup screen for daily use.
>
> Just 0.02
> Māris.
>
> 2015-01-22 17:27 GMT+02:00 Anna Petrášová <kratochanna at gmail.com>:
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> 2015-01-22 9:48 GMT+01:00 Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork at gmail.com>:
> >> > A suggestion for a compromise:
> >> >
> >> > Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like
> >> > "Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y"
> >> > nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsets
> >> >
> >> > Only two buttons: OK, Change
> >> > Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen.
> >> >
> >> > The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would
> >> > reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome
> >> > screen. It would also give more space for a little graphic ;-)
> >> >
> >> > Location and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist,
> >> > create a new GISDBASE in the user's home, put the demolocation in it
> >> > and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that).
> >>
> >> it make sense to me, I really like this idea. Martin
> >
> >
> > I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset
> quite
> > often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation
> > should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just
> hits
> > Start GRASS on the current welcome dialog and there is no need for the
> > minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It
> creates
> > grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not
> in
> > home.
> >
> > What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not
> really
> > the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to
> > automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work
> > and explanation and it's useful not just for beginners. This is a topic
> for
> > a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what
> we
> > decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented.
> > Especially when user will start with empty location, they will want to
> > import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of
> cases
> > when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they
> get
> > and don't read.
> >
> > Any opinion on what can we do for this release?
> >
> > Anna
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Martin Landa
> >> http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
> >> http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
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> >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
> >
> >
> >
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