[GRASS-user] grass70 and display monitor

[Michael Barton]

Roy,

I guess you haven't been following quite all of this discussion.

You can still run all module commands in GRASS from any terminal. You  
can TYPE d* commands into the command line interface of the GUI and  
have the resulting maps displayed in the GUI display canvas. You can  
also type the d.* commands into any xterminal and have grass maps  
saved as graphic files to view. These can be viewed automatically with  
free image viewers (like d.mon did) as Glynn has shown. The old,  
primitive, INTERACTIVE xterminal behavior is all that has been  
dropped. For interactive use, there is a much more sophisticated  
interface that exists now--that is, you can do a lot more interaction  
than you could do before.

Besides simply not being GRASS 4 or 5 (which are still available to be  
run), what functionality are you missing?

Michael

On Dec 4, 2009, at 4:47 AM, grass-user-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

> Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:29:46 +0000
> From: Roy Sanderson <r.a.sanderson at newcastle.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS-user] grass70 and display monitor
> To: glynn at gclements.plus.com
> Cc: grass-user at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID: <1259915386.16719.126.camel at clarinet>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> Dear Glynn
>
> I have been very surprised by the discussion on the Grass user lists
> explaining the end of the d.mon and associated d.rast, d.vect commands
> in the new Grass 7 version.  I'd naively assumed that they were a
> permanent feature of the Grass environment.  From what I understand,
> their phasing out is primarily because to retain them would impose
> considerable technical challenges in a new Gui environment, would not
> match the philosophy behind Gui interfaces, and provide little real
> benefit.
>
> My concern is simply that of an end-user, administering a small  
> network
> of Ubuntu PCs running Grass, because I have found it a considerable
> struggle to persuade existing users to upgrade to each new version of
> Grass.  The proposed changes will undoubtedly make Grass more  
> appealing
> to new users, but long-term users will drag their feet.  I notice that
> even Microsoft is learning the hard way the risks of changing the user
> interface too radically in an upgrade.
>
> As way of contrast, R has kept a high degree of consistency of the
> interface for each new version, such that existing users have no
> problems when upgrading, but its command-line only environment causes
> massive barriers for new users who are only familiar with Gui  
> software.
> Is Grass able to make some sort of compromise between improving the
> interface to make it more appealing to new users, whilst bringing its
> existing users with it?
>
> Best wishes
> Roy
>
> --
> Roy Sanderson
> Institute for Research on Environment & Sustainability
> Devonshire Building
> Newcastle University
> Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
> r.a.sanderson at newcastle.ac.uk
> 0191 246 4835