[GRASS-dev] Adding an expert mode to the parser

[Anna Petrášová]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 6:00 PM, Markus Neteler <neteler at osgeo.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> in order to not hinder the addition of important new flags/parameters
> to modules while keeping things optionally easy it would be good to
> implement some expert mode to the parser.
>
> The flags and parameters for advanced users should be hidden by
> default (maybe by using an extra definition in order to "tag" them in
> the source code). Then e.g. by setting a variable they would become
> visible in the help text and GUI.
> Probably they should be always accepted when being invoked.
>
> Any thoughts if such mechanism would be complicated to be implemented?

Probably not so complicated, but I would be more concerned with the
decisions coming with this. For example, what should the online manual
show? How do we decide which options are advanced. How do we make sure
people understand the options were not removed, but are just hidden?

If the goal of this is to simplify life for new users, we can focus
the efforts on GUI. If we tag an option as advanced in parser, it
could be moved to a special tab 'Advanced', which some modules already
have. I am not sure hiding the options completely is a good idea. Also
in manual pages, perhaps these advanced options could somehow be
visibly marked as advanced (or possibly hidden with some javascript?).
Let's see what others think about this.

Anna

>
> Markus
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