one month ago has been started development of ps.map's GUI by Anna
Kratochvilova [1, 2]. Anna is a student at the CTU in Prague, she is
working on this GUI within her bachelor's final project mentored by
me. Bearing in mind that she was not working with wxPython library in
the past, she did really incredible job during the last month. In the
result we decided to move her code from the private Git repository to
GRASS add-ons [3] to enable GRASS users to test this GUI, report bugs,
wishes, etc.
This wxGUI extension is possible to install in GRASS 7 via g.extension
(requires system administrator rights)
The question is how to allow installing wxGUI extensions in GRASS 6.
Recently I was suggesting to replace Bash version of g.extension in
GRASS 6 by Pythonized g.extension from GRASS 7 to simplify development
of this fundamental module. Unfortunately there was no interest [4].
Currently there are two options: update Bash script to allow
installing wxGUI extension (any volunteer?) or ship Pythonized
g.extension with wxGUI (to put g.extension.py to
`gui/wxpython/scripts`). What's your preferences?
I have a chance to try out the new ps.map wx front end and you
are to be congratulated -- it is very nice! Great progress.
some notes:
we should note in README that it only builds in trunk (due to
Other.make in Makefiles). [the solution IMO is not to backport
entire new build system to 6.5, rather if test -e $file ; then ..
else ... fi during its life in the grass6 addons repo; or move
it into the grass7 addons repo]
scale bar:
* Style:Type: 'fancy' and 'simple' words don't need to be there. img is enough.
output to instruction file:
* I use a .psmap extension for those.
* "output to text" is a bit ambiguous. perhaps "Save As..." or
"output instruction file" instead?
* #g.region comment at top of file is a nice touch, consider
adding another comment line with time+date and another with
location/mapset
* only need to output map position to 0.001" not %.11f (beyond
size of molecules!)
* maybe match R:G:B to standard named colors and substitute name
if matched
* I usually indent the "end"s so only the main instruction is at
the left. Just a matter of style but it makes the final "end"
easier to check.
wiki todo:
* map scale for ll projections (map window)
what does that entail?
(n.b. map scale + plate carree is fundamentally not possible,
regardless of [totally broken] widespread use in other software.
Also map scale + EPS is fundamentally not possible.
Map scale on computer screen is fundamentally possible, but
practically very difficult and requires an end-user per-monitor
calibration. until that exists it should not be shipped in GUIs.
It only works in ps.map+PostScript because we know the exact
final dimensions of the plot + printed paper)
fyi I plan to do a minimal backport of the -b flag to 6.4.2svn
once 6.4.1 is released.
As always, if anyone finds a problem in the ps.map backend, please
let me know/file a bug, as there is a good chance that I've
already half fixed it, have an plan how to fix it, or know why
it can't be fixed. And please to avoid wasted effort and bad
feelings all around, do drop me an email before any structural/
more-than-trivial changes to the backend.