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

[Maris Nartiss]

2015-01-23 21:54 GMT+02:00 Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork at gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 4:34 PM, Margherita Di Leo <diregola at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No, I am talking about a minimal welcome screen to replace the current
> welcome screen. This screen appears (current behaviour) before GRASS
> GIS is started.
>
> Markus M
>
If I got you right, your proposal is to replace:
Launch GRASS -> click on location -> click on mapset -> click on Start
with:
Launch GRASS -> click on "change location" -> click on location ->
click on "change mapset" -> click on mapset -> click on Start

If it is so, I vote with all of my four against.

If you wan to make startup screen more easy, just 1) hide GISDBASE a
bit (instead of showing it as a input field, display as a text with
"change" button); 2) add "Import data" button that starts Location
wizard but by "guessing" parameters based on selected file (with an
option to change, of course).
Having a "project set up" screen as a first screen while launching
some program is not so uncommon in area of pro software. I don't see
how users would benefit if they would be dropped in a some random
location with most of menu items being not completely functional, "add
raster/vector" showing empty lists etc. Even worse - there are plenty
of ESRI Shapefiles without .prj and other datasets without SRS
definitions - users would just start to do their work in XY locations
till it will lead to furtherer problems (Why in ArcGIS is see those
data together, but in GRASS I don't? - one of most common complaints
of my students. Hint - messed up SRS definitions masked by "easy to
use" functionality. How should area / distance be calculated in XY
location for LL data?!?)

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Maris.