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

[Moritz Lennert]

On 23/09/16 02:37, Anna Petrášová wrote:
> 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.

If any, I would say +1 for Anna's suggestion. I don't really like the 
idea of "hiding" options behind an environment variable.

This said, I haven't really experienced that many problems with 
complexity of modules with newbies. Yes, some are a bit overwhelmed at 
first contact, but with a little guidance they quickly get the hang of 
things...

Moritz