[GRASS-user] re: WXPYTHON???

[Michael Barton]

On Feb 1, 2009, at 4:30 AM, <grass-user-request at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:28:06 -0500
> From: Macsurfcat <macsurfcat at me.com>
> Subject: [GRASS-user] re: WXPYTHON???
> To: grass-user at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID: <4984DE86.4020508 at me.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Howdy,
>
> Just a little problem I've encountered before, resolved once but
> forgotten the solution:
>
> I've downloaded another version of GRASS 6.3.0 because of extreme
> problems with previous; the GUI default (of course) is not the  
> wxpython
> which I prefer. I have reset it again and again in terminal with an -u
> flag with the same result. The claim is the GUI will be updated, but
> upon opening GRASS again, the older GUI is called and utilized.
>
> Help suggests several options but doesn't exactly explain how to
> implement them: ie; how does one change a variable in the ".grassrc6
> folder", for example.
>
> Sounds ridiculous, I know, but what am I missing here?
>

Not at all ridiculous. In fact, it requires some arcane knowledge.  
There are 2 ways to change the GUI. From the terminal, you can use the  
g.gui command.

g.gui tcltk& launches the tcltk GUI
g.gui wxpython& launches the wxpython GUI

However, all module interfaces will launch in the default GUI  
regardless of which is started from the command line. If you launch  
GRASS from an x11 terminal (i.e., on Linux), you can issue a command  
line argument with GRASS to set the default GUI. I believe it is -tcl  
and -wx. For people starting GRASS on windows and Mac, however, you  
need to edit the .grassrc6 file (not folder) to change the default  
GUI. This file is normally located in your home folder.

This can be done with a standard text editor on windows (don't use a  
word processor that can inadvertently save this file in other than  
text format with wrong line feeds). On the Mac all files that start  
with a "." are hidden with no way built into the Mac interface to make  
them visible. I think this is a bad idea, but that's the way it is. To  
edit the .grassrc6 file, you can get utilities to make all hidden  
files visible ("invisibility toggler", for example), you can use  
TextWrangler's "open hidden" feature, or you can use a command-lined  
text editor like pico (hidden files are visible from the command line).

Once you are editing your .grassrc6 file, you simply need to change  
the GRASS_GUI line

GRASS_GUI: tcltk

OR

GRASS_GUI: wxpython

...will set the default GUI to either TclTk or wxPython.

Hope this helps you and others.

Michael