[GRASS-user] Some suggestions

[Michael Barton]

Tim,

Thanks for the input. Much of this was discussed awhile back when we went
through a design process. Here are some thoughts.


On 6/4/07 12:05 PM, "Tim Michelsen" <timmichelsen at gmx-topmail.de> wrote:

> I think that this is a crucial point.
> There should definately a option to run all Grass sub-windows all in one
> master windows.

An MDI hearkens back to Windows 95 and gets to be a real problem if you want
to have multiple displays open. In most commercial software and a lot of
Open Source packages today, you get a complete new window when you open a
second instance of the application.( e.g., open a second document in MS Word
or a second message in Apple Mail). They are not all grouped within a single
master window. It is easier for most people to move separate windows of
multiple instances around rather than having to scroll within a master
window. Each GRASS map display is like a new instance of the application.

> Maybe others like their screen cluttered but especially newbie for whom
> the new GUI is a *real* improvement will get confused.
> Don't forget that besides Grass users may also use a folder browser,
> terminal and mail application at the same time. And now that Grass is
> being ported to Windows don't forget that Windows doesn't have virtual
> workspaces like Gnome, KDE, etc.!

The basic GRASS application design is a minimum of one display and one layer
manager window. Every new instance (new display) adds only one more window
because the single layer manager works for all displays

Each display needs layer management, which takes up a fixed amount of
horizontal space (due to the width of layer names, on/off checkbox,
icon/button to ID layer type and launch properties dialog). If you
permanently attach a layer management window to each display, every display
window must be that much larger (or the display area of the window that much
smaller). You also waste additional vertical space in the layer manager area
when the display is considerably higher than the layer manager needs to be.
This is often the case unless you have a LOT of layers contributing to a
single display.

If you compare the current design with one that permanently attaches a layer
management window to every display (e.g., ArcGIS), the current design saves
considerable screen space relative to the amount of map displayed if you
want to display more than one set of maps. For displaying only one set of
maps, it may lose a little space (though not much since the layer manager is
shorter than the map display usually and also doubles as a command line
terminal).

That said, it could be convenient to attach/dock a map display to the layer
manager, in order to move them around together. I'm looking into a way to do
that. May or may not be possible.

This is not referring to the properties dialogs for each GRASS command.
These are unavoidable if you want to run the command, but can be closed to
clean up the screen. Press OK instead of Apply and the window goes away.
Grouping them into a single MDI wouldn't make them any easier to work with
or less cluttered. Hamish has suggested making them modal by default, with
the option of keeping them open if you want via a checkbox. This sort of
forces you to keep your screen clean unless you really want to do otherwise.

> 
> You may compare it to the disussions going on about the interface of
> Gimp & Photoshop. Here are some impressions what users do to run Gimp in
> 1 window:
> HOWTO: Run GIMP in its own window. -
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=240543&highlight=gimp+howto
> 
> Many huge open source projects have usability commitees or guidelines
> beyond the general workflow for the specific application.
> Are such issues considered by the development team?

These are considered, though there is not a usability committee because the
development team is relatively small compared with the size of this project.
There is a lot of discussion on this archived on the WIKI, where we went
through a design process before starting in on the new GUI.

> 
> Please consider Jarek's concern. We all want to get FOSS4G more
> mainstream. I think that Ubuntu is streamlined towards usability and
> really easy to use [please, I am not starting a distro flame here!] and

If by mainstream, you mean used by more people, then I think we all agree.
Making GRASS more easily useable will certainly help in that direction.
There are well over 300 commands in GRASS, each with may options. And there
is a lot of additional functionality built into the GUI for managing
visualization and output. Trying to make this complexity both accessible and
less intimidating is a big challenge, but worth the effort.

If, however, you mean by mainstream that it should look like the leading
commercial product, then I disagree. Copying a commercial product just
because it has a good marketing team and has sold a lot of copies doesn't
make for a better piece of software. It is certainly worth looking at what
other software does and does well, but I think we have the opportunity to do
better than commercial products.

Cheers
Michael

__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Arizona State University

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton