[GRASS-dev] Applying in GSOC 2012

GRASS GIS GRASS GIS developer
, ,
1

Mohit,

Can you explain what you mean a little more clearly.

What is "window flooding"? If you mean that there are a lot of windows, this is a consequence of each GRASS module launching its own independent GUI dialog. This is done because a significant number of people like to launch modules from the command line rather than from the integrated GUI. It might be nice to have an option that windows would close automatically when a module is run unless a 'run and stay open' box was checked, or something like that. This would have the biggest impact on reducing window clutter.

What do you mean by an integrated GUI? GRASS has an integrated GUI. How would you change this? Redoing the GUI in something other than wxPython would take a LOT of time, and would probably present a problem in being maintainable by the development team. Swipe features could be very nice. How would you create these in wxPython so that they would operate across all OS platforms? Emulating ArcGIS is not necessarily an improvement to the user experience. A PostGIS manager could be quite nice. Again, how would you implement this in wxPython across all OS platforms?

This all sounds like several SOC projects instead of one. It would probably be better if you picked one and sketched it out in more detail.

Michael

On Mar 25, 2012, at 10:00 AM, <grass-dev-request@lists.osgeo.org> <grass-dev-request@lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:35:33 +0530
From: Mohit Kumar <mohit.kumarug08@students.iiit.ac.in>
Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] Applying in GSOC 2012
To: <grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org>
Cc: markus.metz.giswork@googlemail.com, landa.martin@gmail.com
Message-ID: <e2ad3c6e837f112efad9517452a4e7fc@students.iiit.ac.in>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

On Sat, 24 Mar 2012 02:23:38 +0530, Mohit Kumar wrote:

Hello ,
I am a M.S. research student from Lab for Spatial Informatics,
International Institute of Information and Technology, Hyderabad,
India. I have been developing in C++/Python from past two years, I
also know jsp, java, qt,applets, mapServer, google maps API.
I am very much interested in GUI development and want to get involved
in GRASS, I have used ILWIS and ArcGIS. As a user of GRASS I have
found window flooding in wxGUI. I would like to work on wxGUI idea on
the ideas page.
Apart from adding an integrated GUI I will add swipe feature. I will
also like to add PostGIS manager like in QGis.
I also developed web based Optical remote sensing virtual lab for
DRDO, India .

Is there anybody willing to mentor me?

Regards,

Mohit Kumar
Undergraduate Computer Science
Lab for Spatial Informatics
International Institute of Information and Technology
Hyderabad, India
+9.1-9.7.0.3.8.4.0.1.7.5.

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Hello,
I would really appreciate some quick response since I have been trying
to get in touch but haven't been successful. I am really interested in
being a part of GRASS development and look forward to your support.

Regards,
Mohit Kumar
Lab For Spatial Informatics
International Institute of Information and Technology
Hyderabad, India
+9.1-9.7.0.3.8.4.0.1.7.5.

_____________________
C. Michael Barton
Visiting Scientist, Integrated Science Program
National Center for Atmospheric Research &
University Consortium for Atmospheric Research
303-497-2889 (voice)

Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu

2

Sir,
I have just given some suggestions from the view of a user of GRASS on how to improve it GUI further.
My response is below:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:32:19 -0600, Michael Barton wrote:

Mohit,

Can you explain what you mean a little more clearly.

I just gave the suggestions that came in my mind.

What is "window flooding"? If you mean that there are a lot of
windows, this is a consequence of each GRASS module launching its own
independent GUI dialog. This is done because a significant number of
people like to launch modules from the command line rather than from
the integrated GUI. It might be nice to have an option that windows
would close automatically when a module is run unless a 'run and stay
open' box was checked, or something like that. This would have the
biggest impact on reducing window clutter.

By "window flooding" I meant exactly the same, for every module there is a separate GUI dialog which becomes very untidy and then every dialog has to be closed manually. What I thought about it is we can make a single gui which has a fixed widget to display the image, and every image will be in a different tab. Even if one launches a module from command line it will open as a tab in the integrated GUI. We will also give an option to the user if he wants to open the module in new window. This was the idea of an integrated GUI.

What do you mean by an integrated GUI? GRASS has an integrated GUI.
How would you change this? Redoing the GUI in something other than
wxPython would take a LOT of time, and would probably present a
problem in being maintainable by the development team. Swipe features
could be very nice. How would you create these in wxPython so that
they would operate across all OS platforms? Emulating ArcGIS is not
necessarily an improvement to the user experience. A PostGIS manager
could be quite nice. Again, how would you implement this in wxPython
across all OS platforms?

Swipe feature will be a new dialog that will have to widgets lying one on another having an image each. The width of the upper widget will be resizable from zero to length of bottom widget, the bar adjusting the width will act as a slider. This feature will be very useful in comparing any two layers(pictures at different timestamp). To implement this in wxPyhton is not very tough according to me. You can see it implemented here http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html.
PostGIS manager was yet another idea, like a PostGIS manager in Quantum GIS. PyGreSQL is a python module that allows easy use of database operation API from a pyhton script. So it will be like a wrapper over the database. This can be done using wxPython and will be OS independent.

This all sounds like several SOC projects instead of one. It would
probably be better if you picked one and sketched it out in more
detail.

All these were the basic ideas, for deciding the one to propose for SOC, I will need a mentor and feedback to guide me and make a proposal from the ideas.

Michael

_____________________
C. Michael Barton
Visiting Scientist, Integrated Science Program
National Center for Atmospheric Research &
University Consortium for Atmospheric Research
303-497-2889 (voice)

Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu

Regards,
Mohit Kumar
Lab For Spatial Informatics
International Institute of Information and Technology
Hyderabad, India
+9.1-9.7.0.3.8.4.0.1.7.5.