[QGIS-user] Using GRASS' shell from within QGIS

[Tim Sutton]

Hi

On Sat, 2008-11-15 at 11:59 +0100, Agustin Lobo wrote:
> Tim,
> 
> Of course we are grateful to the work of developers
> and understand that the final priority must include
> a weight related to the involvement of the task. But
> I also think that sometimes a problem may be seen
> just as a minor issue for a developer, but could actually
> be an important problem for users, in particular newcomers.

Agreed.

> For example, for someone who wants to use QGIS as a GUI for grass,
> feeling comfortable with the terminal is important.

Yup agreed.


> The fact that me and Nikos see the current behaviour of the grass
> terminal in QGIS as a bug but Alex sees it as a lacking feature, made
> me suggest that both points of view have to be considered
> for the final priority. 

Yup - this is why I said - if in doubt, file a bug. Just bear in mind
that we are a project of volunteers. This means that ultimately some
developer has to care / be interested enough in a bug to want to fix it.
I am working to address this situation by the release programme I am
proposing (draft of which is here:
http://wiki.qgis.org/qgiswiki/ReleaseRoadmap). The idea being that we
will follow the Ubuntu model of long term support releases. The LTS
releases will be the basis used for building up a commercial support
base around QGIS - organisations that wish to use a stabilised
conservative release of QGIS will use the LTS and can pay a support
provider to provide maintenance (i.e. fixing issues users care most
about). However until there is some kind of commercial interest behind
bug fixing activity, we will always be at the mercy of what 'itch'
developers are trying to scratch at any given time. To give us credit
too, many of the bug fixes that go into QGIS are done even though the
particular dev making the fix has no personal interest in it (other than
the interest to generally improve QGIS) so I would like to give credit
where credit is due. Please note that LTS releases are just my idea at
this stage - we will be discussing if we can make this a matter of
formal policy on Monday's PSC meeting.

> I also agree with Nikos
> in that, at least for users, it's good to discuss a problem in
> the list prior to fill a ticket or a feature request. Otherwise
> we could add lots of unnecessary tickets just because
> of our (at least my) ignorance. 

Yup sometimes some casual googling / asking on the list will bring up a
solution far quicker than using trac. Trac is good on the other hand is
good for making sure things dont get brushed under the carpet since
email discussions are very ephemeral.

>
> And your point of
> making sure that the person filling a ticket actually gets
> subscribed to it is, I agree, critical: filling a ticket implies
> the commitment of following it.
> 
> Thanks again to all who make the QGIS magic work.

Thanks to you too, you are part of the magic :-)

Regards

Tim

> 
> Agus
> 
> Tim Sutton wrote:
> > Hi
> > 
> > 
> > On Fri, 2008-11-14 at 11:59 +0100, Agustin Lobo wrote:
> >> Nikos,
> >>
> >> I think that this is again a consequence of the different point of
> >> view of developers and users: from a user point of view, this is
> >> clearly a bug, it's something that does not work as expected.
> > 
> > My view on filing bugs is that in general its better to file a bug if
> > you are uncertain as to whetherr it merits a bug report or not with the
> > following understanding:
> > 
> >  - just because a bug is filed doesnt always mean we can or will fix it.
> > Sometimes people ask for things that will require many man hours to to
> > and offer little reward to work ratio benifit when compared to the other
> > issues int he queue. Also some things are simply not fixable due to
> > whatever technical reason.
> >  - sometimes we dont fix a bug because the users vision of how QGIS
> > should behave doesnt match ours. Hey we are all humans it can happen...
> > - always check that your bug has not already been filed by someone else
> > since dealing with duplicate tickets causes a lot of time wasting.
> > - always provide contact details and make sure you are subscribed to the
> > ticket entry (either by adding yourself to CC field or by logging in
> > before filing the ticket).
> > - dont be offended if we dont see tickets as having the same priority as
> > you do. While we appreciate its inconvenient if some issue prevents you
> > doing your work, we need to take the big picture view of things and
> > focus on things that affect the largest proportion of our user base.
> > 
> > Regards
> > 
> > 
> > Tim
> > 
> > 
> >> The "solution" I'm using is just opening an xterm with xterm &
> >> and can work
> >> from the new terminal with no problem. But this is just a temporary 
> >> solution. May be we should at least document the problem and
> >> the workaround, the current situation causes lots of frustration
> >> to newcomers.
> >>
> >> Agus
> >>> -----------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Message: 6
> >>> Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:15:29 -0800
> >>> From: Alex Mandel <tech_dev at wildintellect.com>
> >>> Subject: Re: [QGIS-user] Using GRASS' shell from within QGIS
> >>> To: qgis-user <qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org>
> >>> Message-ID: <491CED51.7060903 at wildintellect.com>
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >>>
> >>> Nikos Alexandris wrote:
> >>>>> Hi all! Apologies for cross-posting.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I don't know how frequently you use GRASS' shell from within QGIS. I
> >>>>> like it but typing, deleting (with backspace) or using
> >>>>> "arrow-keys" (left & right), "home" or "end" doesn't work as expected.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Is it only my installation or is it a known "bug"?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As an extra, I would like to change the font. I don't need it so big and
> >>>>> (why is it by deafult...) italics?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Kind regards, Nikos
> >>>>>
> >>> I don't think it's a bug, I think it's a lack of features possibly due
> >>> to a lack of features in QT.
> >>>
> >>> I'll let the developers weigh in on it but suggest you file a feature
> >>> request on trac.osgeo.org/qgis
> >>>
> >>> Alex
> >>>
> > 
> 

-- 
Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  Manager)
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