[GRASSLIST:236] RE: Considering replacing ESRI - also the GUI

[jbrowne]

If funtionality such as rotation and other features are in demand, it is up to 
someone, or some group of us, to implement it in future releases.

As I am mainly using ESRI products at work, I think that my biggest problem in 
putting GRASS in front of my workers is the GUI interface. While I started 
with command line programs (ed and such), most of my workers are 
command-line-phobes. With GRASS, even its standard GUI interface, it requires 
an understanding of the various utilities and their required input values. 
While 5.0 is a huge improvement in consistency and in providing prompts, it is 
still a huge learning curve compared to the ESRI products and their end user 
interface. On the other hand the administration of the "ESRI enterprise 
system" is getting much more demanding and costly.

A couple of years ago, when I had people and projects that made it look like I 
would need to put habitual W*nd*s* users in front of GRASS, I started working 
on a more  intuitive interface. That all fell apart a bit later. A new 
employees and new projects are making me think of reviving that effort.

The main idea is to design it from the perspective of the user and grouping 
the functionality more like a former ESRI user would expect. This would also 
totally hide the functions and help walk the user through without memorizing 
the manuals.

I only have about 1/3 the commands enclosed in this wrapper, but have some 
people  using Linux and some of the projects we are starting or reviving have 
me thinking about getting my effort going again. New tools such as PostGIS 
also make this a more enticing alternative.

          Jim Browne <jbrowne at liu.edu>