[Qgis-developer] GRASS GUI Ideas (was Re: excuse for update troubles)

[Benjamin Ducke]

Dear all,

I agree that some fresh ideas are needed to improve GRASS usability.

Some very tiny changes could improve usability a lot:

1. Make a GUI entry for starting the GRASS shell right in the main
menubar of the plugin + add an icon for the same purpose in the
plugin's icon bar. This way, it's easier to quickly hack in a few
GRASS commands w/o having to first load that heavy toolbox.

2. Move the data browser window out of the toolbox and into its
own window (perhaps also add a menu entry for it in the plugin's
menubar). It's confusing to have the browser and the module interfaces
in one over-loaded window, I think.

As a bigger change, I suggest taking the top level of the module
tree hierarchy out of the tree and instead have nice big buttons
on the left side of the toolbox to switch between top-level categories
(such as "Import", "Export" etc.) -- the way Mac OS uses them, e.g.
in the Finder file windows.

I think it would also be better to have each module start in its own
window instead of inside the GRASS Tools window. This way, the user's
window manager can take care of organizing all the open module windows
much better and more flexibly than can be done in a single, tabbed
window.

Another benefit of this would be that we could get rid of the
top level tabs in the GRASS Tools window. I find it very confusing
to have two lines of tabs in one window - "Modules", "Browser" and
all the open modules on one row and individual module tabs
"Options", "Output" and "Manual" on another.

Best,

Benjamin



Tim Sutton wrote:
> Hi Leonardo
> 
> No problem keep up the great work! If you are unsure of anything, just
> ask first here on the list. I had a look through the grass toolbox and
> the list of supported GRASS functions is looking very impressive so
> well done for all that work.
> 
> By the way I put together CODING document in (svn trunk top level of
> qgis checkout) that newly granted committers should probably have a
> read though.
> 
> Grass Notes:
> --------------------------
> 
> Before we release 1.0 I would like to make some changes to that
> toolbox to add a category and filter box something like this
> screenshot.
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlinux/2054596971/
> 
> The mockup list entries themselves would like more like the entries in
> this screenshot from kde:
> 
> http://www.kde.org/announcements/visual_guide_images-3.5/kicker-applets.png
> 
> In other words it would be like my mockup but each tool entry would
> have its icon on left, the tool title in bold and then the brief
> description underneath. The toolbox would have an 'all' category where
> all modules would be visible and then other categories in common with
> the current nodes in the GRASS toolbox tree.
> 
> The rest of the grass tools would remain unchanged for now (though I
> do have some other ideas for further improvements to the toolbox ui
> that I will bring up later).
> 
> What do people think?
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Tim
> 
> 
> 2007/11/22, lami at faunalia.it <lami at faunalia.it>:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have seen that I created some troubles with the update of GRASS
>> modules and I'd like to excuse me for this. I was my first time in
>> update and I did'nt know how to update all the files in one time.
>>
>> I hope I will be more careful next time....
>>
>> Sorry again
>> Leonardo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Qgis-developer at lists.qgis.org
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>>
> 
> 

-- 
Benjamin Ducke, M.A.
Archäoinformatik
(Archaeoinformation Science)
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
(Inst. of Prehistoric and Historic Archaeology)
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6
D 24098 Kiel
Germany

Tel.: ++49 (0)431 880-3378 / -3379
Fax : ++49 (0)431 880-7300
www.uni-kiel.de/ufg