[GRASSLIST:4063] GRASS5.03 vs GRASS5.7

[Michael Barton]

On Aug 1, 2004, at 10:01 PM, Multiple recipients of list wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm not sure if the developers of GRASS read this list; if not, 
> forgive me for being off-topic.
>
> One observation:
> One thing I miss in the new GUI of GRASS 5.7 that I have in GRASS 
> 5.03: The little blue text saying "Running..." and "Finished". It was 
> really usefull and now it is sometimes difficult to know if a command 
> is still busy or has already finished. (This is especially true for a 
> newbie when I have no idea how long a command would normally run at 
> different resolutions).
>

This is something generated (or not) within each command module. Some 
of them have it in GRASS 5.7. Most of the scripts I've written or 
updated from GRASS 5.3 to 5.7 print a message when they are done. 
Sometimes it doesn't really matter and other times it is very helpful. 
What is most annoying to me are those older commands that send an email 
message when they are completed. Of course these go to an internal mail 
system and never reaches the email I normally look at. Periodically I 
look up how to get these messages. Then, because I rarely use this, I 
promptly forget it.

> One question:
> It seems to me that (at least some) commands on the CLI differs a bit 
> from those on the GUI. Was this a deliberate decision? If so, why?

This is indeed the case...sometimes. In most cases, it is due to a 
problem with the module that automatically generates and read the GUI 
dialogs in GRASS 5.7. All the dialogs that pop up when you type a 
command or select it from the menu are automatically generated for each 
command. You can even have a dialog automatically generated for a 
script that you write. Look at the documentation for g.parser or some 
of the scripts that come with GRASS 5.7 to get some idea of how it 
works. It is actually quite slick and gives GRASS 5.7 a much better 
interface much easier than before. However, this version is still in 
development and there are a few glitches. IMHO, the biggest one 
interface-wise at present is that the parsing program that generates 
and reads these autogenerated dialogs has trouble with entries that 
contain spaces. This causes a variety of things to not work quite right 
when you use the GUI. SQL queries are the most notable perhaps. You can 
specify [variable='foo'] but not [variable='foo' or variable='faa']. 
This DOES work just fine from the command line. Currently, I'd guess 
about 90% or more of the commands work just fine from the GUI. Of the 
remaining ones, most work OK for most options, and choke on a few 
others. Developers are trying to fix this issue.


Michael

____________________
C. Michael Barton, Professor
School of Human Origins, Cultures, & Societies
PO Box 872402
Arizona State University
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Phone: 480-965-6262
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