[GRASS-dev] impressions on wx GUI

GRASS GIS GRASS GIS developer
,
1

I just installed the prototype of wx GUI. It's looking good! nice work!

- some impressions:

I guess the display is working nice, it's fast. although most people
coming from other GIS wants a display where you don't have to ask it
to draw the maps. If you de-select one map, it would automatically
draw the underlying layer (like QGIS).

Multiple selection of layers in GIS Manager. If you want to delete
several layers, it is a pain to do it one by one.

Also some right-click would be nice. it could open a menu with options
like delete, info, colors...

IMO a slider for transparency is easier to play with. maybe we could
have both the slider and the numerical value, maybe in one of the
right-click options.

Enable the overlay option for rasters as a default.

Maybe make the font size in the dialogs smaller? I get the feeling
that it is too big, with too much space between the components.

If I am in the "output" tab of GI manager, and add a new
raster/vector, I should be sent back to the "layers" tab.

that's it for now.

Carlos

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
              Carlos Henrique Grohmann - Guano
  Geologist M.Sc - Doctorate Student at IGc-USP - Brazil
Linux User #89721 - carlos dot grohmann at gmail dot com
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
_________________
"Good morning, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows
95 from my hard drive."
--The winning entry in a "What were HAL's first words" contest judged
by 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY creator Arthur C. Clarke

2

"Carlos \"Guâno\" Grohmann" wrote:

I guess the display is working nice, it's fast. although most people
coming from other GIS wants a display where you don't have to ask it
to draw the maps. If you de-select one map, it would automatically
draw the underlying layer (like QGIS).

This is probably an artifact of using an external program (g.pnmcomp)
to composite layers.

AFAICT, this shouldn't be necessary with wxPython, at least when
translucency isn't being used. It should be possible to convert the
alpha channel to a mask and use native wx functions to composite
layers.

Unfortunately, wxWidgets doesn't appear to directly support
translucency. It might be worth looking into using e.g. PIL for this.

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

3

On 4/12/07 9:35 AM, "Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann" <carlos.grohmann@gmail.com>
wrote:

I just installed the prototype of wx GUI. It's looking good! nice work!

- some impressions:

I guess the display is working nice, it's fast. although most people
coming from other GIS wants a display where you don't have to ask it
to draw the maps. If you de-select one map, it would automatically
draw the underlying layer (like QGIS).

This is doable. However, there was discussion on this point for the current
TclTk gui (where it is also doable). The majority of the responders
preferred to be able to add and manage layers without waiting for a redraw
for each change. They preferred to control redraw.

Multiple selection of layers in GIS Manager. If you want to delete
several layers, it is a pain to do it one by one.

Duly noted. Multiple drag and drop is more difficult however.

Also some right-click would be nice. it could open a menu with options
like delete, info, colors...

Definitely agree. We've discussed adding these when basic features are
working well. For example, a contextual menu for a display might list
various zoom options, redraw, etc.

IMO a slider for transparency is easier to play with. maybe we could
have both the slider and the numerical value, maybe in one of the
right-click options.

I tried the sliders and they looked bad (at least on my Mac) and took up an
inordinate amount of space. A bonus of the spin controls is that you can
type values into them too.

Enable the overlay option for rasters as a default.

This requires a custom options dialog because it actually calls d.his. I
think this is a very handy feature. But right now, we're using the
autogenerated dialogs for each command to save time getting the GUI up and
running--and these are actually quite nice. We've talked some about custom
properties dialogs in the future.

Maybe make the font size in the dialogs smaller? I get the feeling
that it is too big, with too much space between the components.

This is using your default system font. One problem with specifying fonts
in detail is that they may look funny or even not work on different systems.
Currently, I think the font is 11 point, which is a pretty good compromise
on most systems. Which part looks especially large to you?

If I am in the "output" tab of GI manager, and add a new
raster/vector, I should be sent back to the "layers" tab.

Good idea

Thanks for testing
Michael

that's it for now.

Carlos

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

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

4

Done

On 4/12/07 5:20 PM, "Michael Barton" <michael.barton@asu.edu> wrote:

If I am in the "output" tab of GI manager, and add a new
raster/vector, I should be sent back to the "layers" tab.

__________________________________________
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

5

Done for layer delete AND for querying multiple raster/vector maps
simultaneously

Michael

On 4/12/07 5:20 PM, "Michael Barton" <michael.barton@asu.edu> wrote:

Multiple selection of layers in GIS Manager. If you want to delete
several layers, it is a pain to do it one by one.

Duly noted. Multiple drag and drop is more difficult however.

__________________________________________
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

6

Just tested it. Multiple selection of map layers is working fine.

I had some problems with the transparency. The first time I set a
transparency value, I did not worked. Then I set the overlay flag on,
and it worked. then I changed the transparency value and it didn't
worked again. when I unset the overlay, it worked...

Carlos

On 4/14/07, Michael Barton <michael.barton@asu.edu> wrote:

Done for layer delete AND for querying multiple raster/vector maps
simultaneously

Michael

On 4/12/07 5:20 PM, "Michael Barton" <michael.barton@asu.edu> wrote:

>>
>> Multiple selection of layers in GIS Manager. If you want to delete
>> several layers, it is a pain to do it one by one.
>
> Duly noted. Multiple drag and drop is more difficult however.

__________________________________________
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

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
              Carlos Henrique Grohmann - Guano
  Geologist M.Sc - Doctorate Student at IGc-USP - Brazil
Linux User #89721 - carlos dot grohmann at gmail dot com
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
_________________
"Good morning, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows
95 from my hard drive."
--The winning entry in a "What were HAL's first words" contest judged
by 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY creator Arthur C. Clarke

7

The overlay flag has nothing to do with transparency. What may be happening
is that the rendering algorithm is not catching the transparency change
until you change some other option for the layer. I don't get that behavior,
so I kind of guessing, however.

Michael

On 4/14/07 9:58 AM, "Carlos "Guâno" Grohmann" <carlos.grohmann@gmail.com>
wrote:

Just tested it. Multiple selection of map layers is working fine.

I had some problems with the transparency. The first time I set a
transparency value, I did not worked. Then I set the overlay flag on,
and it worked. then I changed the transparency value and it didn't
worked again. when I unset the overlay, it worked...

Carlos

On 4/14/07, Michael Barton <michael.barton@asu.edu> wrote:

Done for layer delete AND for querying multiple raster/vector maps
simultaneously

Michael

On 4/12/07 5:20 PM, "Michael Barton" <michael.barton@asu.edu> wrote:

Multiple selection of layers in GIS Manager. If you want to delete
several layers, it is a pain to do it one by one.

Duly noted. Multiple drag and drop is more difficult however.

__________________________________________
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

__________________________________________
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