[GRASS-dev] helpful error messages

GRASS GIS GRASS GIS developer
1

I don't often get a chance to have input to hard core code development so this may be a naive request, but...

can I enter a request for error messages generally, and from the catch code being discussed in particular, that are verbose and provide some indication of the likely source of the problem. Or when the source could be a variety of things, a list of possible problems?

Thanks,

Jerry

---- Original message ----

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:01:15 +0100
From: Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>
Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] figuring out fonts - part 2
To: Michael Barton <michael.barton@asu.edu>
Cc: GRASS developers list <grass-dev@grass.itc.it>

Michael Barton wrote:

It is a good thing that GRASS has a set of fonts that can be guaranteed to
be present, regardless of the system. These are the venerable stroke fonts.
But these fonts are ugly and hard to read. Romans just doesn¹t stand out
well in a scale or legend, for example, unless against a white background
and even then it is not clear at a distance for presentations.

So here is a question. Can GRASS ship with a better set of fonts? Can it
come with a minimal TrueType set, for example, that could be guaranteed
present regardless of the system? Or is this technically not realistically
feasible?

Support for TrueType fonts requires the FreeType library, which is
currently an optional dependency.

That aside, most people will already have the Luxi font from the X.org
packages.

--
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>

_______________________________________________
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grass-dev@grass.itc.it
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Gerald Nelson
Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
office: 217-333-6465
cell: 217-390-7888
315 Mumford Hall
1301 W. Gregory
Urbana, IL 61801

2

Thanks for the input.

The TclTk error codes are generated by TclTk. They are generally very
verbose, though that is not always helpful. But they aren't too bad as error
codes go, since they are in english rather than a numeric code and they
indicate where the error occurred.

Sometimes the TclTk errors are actually generated by a GRASS or system
problem. I'm trying to add more TclTk error traps (catch clauses) that will
print these to the terminal when they happen. They may or may not be more
interpretable, but at least they will be available.

In a few cases where we can anticipate a possible user error and know what
causes it, I can build in a message box that explains the problem. There are
a number of these scattered throughout the code, though not as many as the
catch clauses I'm adding, because it is very difficult to know in advance
what is wrong in order to generate a non-TclTk/GRASS/system error message.

Michael

On 4/29/07 3:15 PM, "Gerald Nelson" <gnelson@uiuc.edu> wrote:

I don't often get a chance to have input to hard core code development so this
may be a naive request, but...

can I enter a request for error messages generally, and from the catch code
being discussed in particular, that are verbose and provide some indication of
the likely source of the problem. Or when the source could be a variety of
things, a list of possible problems?

Thanks,

Jerry

---- Original message ----

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:01:15 +0100
From: Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>
Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] figuring out fonts - part 2
To: Michael Barton <michael.barton@asu.edu>
Cc: GRASS developers list <grass-dev@grass.itc.it>

Michael Barton wrote:

It is a good thing that GRASS has a set of fonts that can be guaranteed to
be present, regardless of the system. These are the venerable stroke fonts.
But these fonts are ugly and hard to read. Romans just doesn¹t stand out
well in a scale or legend, for example, unless against a white background
and even then it is not clear at a distance for presentations.

So here is a question. Can GRASS ship with a better set of fonts? Can it
come with a minimal TrueType set, for example, that could be guaranteed
present regardless of the system? Or is this technically not realistically
feasible?

Support for TrueType fonts requires the FreeType library, which is
currently an optional dependency.

That aside, most people will already have the Luxi font from the X.org
packages.

--
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>

_______________________________________________
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev

Gerald Nelson
Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
office: 217-333-6465
cell: 217-390-7888
315 Mumford Hall
1301 W. Gregory
Urbana, IL 61801

__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Arizona State University

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton