[Qgis-developer] Proposal for organizing algorithms in SEXTANTE

[Luca Delucchi]

2012/12/7 Victor Olaya <volayaf at gmail.com>:
> Hi all
>

Hi Victor

> I have been doing some work to have an alternative organization of
> algorithms in the SEXTANTE toolbox, targeted at the non-advanced
> users. I can be now be enabled in the SEXTANTE configuration. When
> this is active, algorithms do not appear as belonging to a provider,
> but just under a common branch simply called "algorithms". All
> available algorithms are classified in categories, independently of
> their origin. This gives a more homogeneous interface and should make
> it easier for users to select the algorithm they need.
>
> I think this is important to make it easier and more intuitive to use
> SEXTANTE and the (very) large number or algorithms it currently
> contains, and it is an area that we should work on.
>
> This homogeneous interface requires some extra work to be done:
>
> - Defining a set of categories, based on a criteria that is agreed as
> the best one (or even define several of them, according to different
> criteria, such as field of application, type of data it needs, etc).
> - Define categories for each algorithm, and also alternative names,
> since now they do not follow a similar pattern (GRASS ones, for
> instance, are too verbose). This is stored independently of the
> algorithms and their names, so it can be used as a decoration, and
> different naming schemes can be used, or a different classification.
>
> Since no classification has been defined yet, now all algorithms use
> their "normal" undecorated name and group name, but the functionality
> is already there, and ready to
>
> A third task will round this up, but implies clearly a larger amount of work:
>
> - Write help files for algorithms using a common template. A single
> help file written in RestructuredText, that can be turned into HTML to
> display basic ideas about each algorithm, like a description of the
> process or an explanation about the meaning of each input and output.
> Algorithms already documented (like GRASS ones), should be easily
> adapted to this in some automated way. I plan to write some kind of
> script to automate the creation of the basic files for all remaining
> algorithms, including parameter names, etc.
>

I don't know if could be useful but here [0] you can find a Python
script to obtain topics about GRASS commands and also a classification
of each modules. You can find the result here [1]

[0] http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/trunk/man/build_topics.py
[1] http://grass.osgeo.org/grass70/manuals/topics.html

>
> Victor
>

Regards

-- 
ciao
Luca

http://gis.cri.fmach.it/delucchi/
www.lucadelu.org