Hi,
2015-01-22 16:54 GMT+01:00 Anna Petrášová <kratochanna@gmail.com>:
I would say that it's topic for 7.1 or partially for 7.0.1. Release
branch is currently in hard freeze, so only bug fixes should go there.Right. But we still should decide on the graphics (different thread).
yes, it make sense to me. Martin
--
Martin Landa
http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much bigger issue.
The reasons that GRASS just can’t open and then load a file like a word processor are multiple and related. Foremost is the underlying structure of the geospatial data that GRASS uses. The GISDBASE/location/mapset structure organizes the location and the format of the data.
A word processor like LibreOffice can open a file from anywhere, in any format that it can read, modify it, and save it to anywhere the computer user has access to. A GRASS user can ONLY open GIS data from a mapset within the current location within the current database. A GIS file modified or created can ONLY be saved within the current mapset. A non-GRASS GIS file can be imported into the current mapset, but ONLY if it has the same projection as the current location. Any GRASS user must encounter these interactions of file location, format, and projection before using GIS data. So allowing a user to start the program before facing this only kicks the can down the road a short distance.
QGIS uses shapefiles and (IIRC) geotiffs for its GIS data. These are pretty portable and can be stored anywhere, and include projection information with them (or they should). Arc is more like GRASS. I’m not sure about the current version, but in prior versions at least, you could not even move Arc directories without messing up the program’s ability to read the data correctly.
Both QGIS and Arc get around the problem of opening files in different formats and projections by doing approximate reprojection on the fly. For a lot of very good reasons, the GRASS developer community has repeatedly decided that this is not a good idea for GRASS because of its potential for geospatial error and for users to misunderstand the approximate nature of the automatic reprojection.
So we are back to the database/location/mapset organization. Unless we make some fundamental changes in how GRASS works, users MUST open GRASS in a database/location/mapset. They MUST choose (or have chosen for them) a projection (location) and working directory (mapset). Making a default one for them (e.g., a latlon default) doesn’t help all that much it seems to me.
Perhaps an alternative is to change the names somewhat so that users are informed about what is really needed to start GRASS.
To really implement this more easily, we might want to consider de-coupling these fundamentals (especially projection) from the file structure. In other words, we could get rid of “location” as a directory that has a PERMANENT mapset with files for projection and extent, and keep this information elsewhere. Then we could more easily have working directories (currently called mapsets) in any location on the computer. This could make it easier to get people started and still maintain the geospatial integrity that GRASS is known for.
Michael
C. Michael Barton
Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science
Arizona State University
voice: 480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)
fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu
On Jan 22, 2015, at 8:27 AM, Anna Petrášová <kratochanna@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
2015-01-22 9:48 GMT+01:00 Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork@gmail.com>:
A suggestion for a compromise:
Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like
“Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y”
nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsetsOnly two buttons: OK, Change
Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen.The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would
reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome
screen. It would also give more space for a little graphicLocation and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist,
create a new GISDBASE in the user’s home, put the demolocation in it
and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that).it make sense to me, I really like this idea. Martin
I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset quite often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just hits Start GRASS on the current welcome dialog and there is no need for the minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It creates grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not in home.
What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not really the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work and explanation and it’s useful not just for beginners. This is a topic for a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what we decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented. Especially when user will start with empty location, they will want to import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of cases when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they get and don’t read.
Any opinion on what can we do for this release?
Anna
–
Martin Landa
http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
grass-dev mailing list
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http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
I fully support Anna here.
Again, in addition
the startup screen - as it is now - gives a good overview over existing data in the GRASSS DB, that is valuable information for me
probably hiding the path to the GISDBASE (once that is defined in the user profile) behind a button (there is already a “Browse” button anyway) may tempt student or other beginners less to create new GISDBASE folder at every startup (which is what I saw a couple of times, because this was the first thing we did at a course). Yet, a reasonable predefined path might be an even better solution in this regards.
I am still a bit skeptical regarding the a lat/long default location. If people use it, they probably either do stupid things to their data (as Anna mentioned) or run stupid analysis which are not technically sound. Or they run into problems e.g. regarding reprojection quite soon… That could be worse than a challenging startup… If they do not use it, I guess they wonder what it is for …
Since the Location / Mapset is a fundamental in GRASS, I am not sure if it really does good to hide it.
Would not a “wizard” (like e.g. the three steps Michaled proposed) which shows up only at first time startup (when no relevant information is in the user profile) be able to provide enough guidance for new users?
Vaclav`s subtle improvements look good by the way.
Sorry if I am a bit conservative, that is only because you all created a remarkably piece of software and I a am happy that I can use it freely every day at work… 
However I also like an experimental approach to GIS, so give it a shot and let`s see…
As for the reprojection at import (I would be happy about such a feature too), there are already two (duplicate) tickets in trac:
https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/2208
https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/2486
(I just removed the duplicate)
Cheers
Stefan
I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset quite often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just hits Start GRASS on the current welcome dialog and there is no need for the minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It creates grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not in home.
What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not really the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work and explanation and it’s useful not just for beginners. This is a topic for a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what we decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented. Especially when user will start with empty location, they will want to import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of cases when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they get and don’t read.
Any opinion on what can we do for this release?
Anna
–
Martin Landa
http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:
For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup
screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much
bigger issue.
Not everybody considers my suggestion as useful-enough change and there is
the hard freeze (although the functionality changes are almost zero). As a
result, I don't plan to commit it to release branch now. However, I
consider it as a great improvement which I definitively want to use and I
think it is very beneficial for beginners, so I will commit that to trunk
when I get to it. Then we can continue in the other improvements.
To the other things. I also consider data in different projections as much
bigger issue. GRASS has all the tools as described and also implemented by
Markus Metz but it is too much for beginners. We should definitively make
it more accessible (but it is also interesting business opportunity :-).
I still don't understand what the user could in the dummy/LL/XY/demo
location besides looking to menus and being confused from wrongly imported
data or no imported data at all because of projection issues.
Michael suggests to replace startup by some wizard and this is what QGIS is
doing. So, is putting everything to wizard better then the window +
optional wizard? We can go that way but note the difference between QGIS
and GRASS, when QGIS is running the wizard, the app is already there,
wizard is just an additional window. For GRASS, it would the window you get
which might be strange. Even stranger if the window would be just some
small one with "Will start in location xxx" and "Change" and "Continue"
buttons.
It would be also useful to analyze why the thing which is done on MS
Windows by the standalone installer is not enough. There should be a demo
location already and set as last used. Also NC SPM can be downloaded,
should it be checked by default?
Does somebody has a opinion on using "Location", "GRASS Location", or
"GRASS location" consistently? You can see also "LOCATION" here and there
in GRASS but I wouldn't go that way.
Hi Vaclav,
To be clear, I agree with you that GRASS should not start with a wizard and had did not intend anyone to think that.
The ‘step 1, step 2, step 3’ was simply to put this as text on the startup dialog, to help users know which step to do in what order.
The more radical suggestion that I made today involves fundamental change of how GRASS works. Change the file structure to GISDBASE/mapsets=working directories and get rid of locations as folders. Store projection information in a different way than as locations. Maybe store projection info in each mapset, or maybe some other way. Maybe each mapset still only contains maps from a single projection to keep maps of the same projection together. It may be necessary to do other things to make sure that users don’t try to combine maps of different projections.
This would make it possible to have a simpler startup. But it would take more thought and some programming to make it work.
Michael
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:
For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much bigger issue.
Not everybody considers my suggestion as useful-enough change and there is the hard freeze (although the functionality changes are almost zero). As a result, I don’t plan to commit it to release branch now. However, I consider it as a great improvement which I definitively want to use and I think it is very beneficial for beginners, so I will commit that to trunk when I get to it. Then we can continue in the other improvements.
To the other things. I also consider data in different projections as much bigger issue. GRASS has all the tools as described and also implemented by Markus Metz but it is too much for beginners. We should definitively make it more accessible (but it is also interesting business opportunity :-).
I still don’t understand what the user could in the dummy/LL/XY/demo location besides looking to menus and being confused from wrongly imported data or no imported data at all because of projection issues.
Michael suggests to replace startup by some wizard and this is what QGIS is doing. So, is putting everything to wizard better then the window + optional wizard? We can go that way but note the difference between QGIS and GRASS, when QGIS is running the wizard, the app is already there, wizard is just an additional window. For GRASS, it would the window you get which might be strange. Even stranger if the window would be just some small one with “Will start in location xxx” and “Change” and “Continue” buttons.
It would be also useful to analyze why the thing which is done on MS Windows by the standalone installer is not enough. There should be a demo location already and set as last used. Also NC SPM can be downloaded, should it be checked by default?
Does somebody has a opinion on using “Location”, “GRASS Location”, or “GRASS location” consistently? You can see also “LOCATION” here and there in GRASS but I wouldn’t go that way.
Hi MIchael,
Are we going to yet another branch from the original topic 
I believe the fundamental change you speak about is worth discussing for GRASS 8.
I also believe that the on-the-fly reprojection on import is a feature we all agree is (very) needed (GRASS 8).
Finally, I believe that Vaclav small changes to the welcome page are worth agreeing upon.
On 23 January 2015 at 10:23, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:
Hi Vaclav,
To be clear, I agree with you that GRASS should not start with a wizard and had did not intend anyone to think that.
The ‘step 1, step 2, step 3’ was simply to put this as text on the startup dialog, to help users know which step to do in what order.
The more radical suggestion that I made today involves fundamental change of how GRASS works. Change the file structure to GISDBASE/mapsets=working directories and get rid of locations as folders. Store projection information in a different way than as locations. Maybe store projection info in each mapset, or maybe some other way. Maybe each mapset still only contains maps from a single projection to keep maps of the same projection together. It may be necessary to do other things to make sure that users don’t try to combine maps of different projections.
This would make it possible to have a simpler startup. But it would take more thought and some programming to make it work.
Michael
C. Michael Barton
Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science
Arizona State Universityvoice: 480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)
fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu
On Jan 22, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
–
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:
For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much bigger issue.
Not everybody considers my suggestion as useful-enough change and there is the hard freeze (although the functionality changes are almost zero). As a result, I don’t plan to commit it to release branch now. However, I consider it as a great improvement which I definitively want to use and I think it is very beneficial for beginners, so I will commit that to trunk when I get to it. Then we can continue in the other improvements.
To the other things. I also consider data in different projections as much bigger issue. GRASS has all the tools as described and also implemented by Markus Metz but it is too much for beginners. We should definitively make it more accessible (but it is also interesting business opportunity :-).
I still don’t understand what the user could in the dummy/LL/XY/demo location besides looking to menus and being confused from wrongly imported data or no imported data at all because of projection issues.
Michael suggests to replace startup by some wizard and this is what QGIS is doing. So, is putting everything to wizard better then the window + optional wizard? We can go that way but note the difference between QGIS and GRASS, when QGIS is running the wizard, the app is already there, wizard is just an additional window. For GRASS, it would the window you get which might be strange. Even stranger if the window would be just some small one with “Will start in location xxx” and “Change” and “Continue” buttons.
It would be also useful to analyze why the thing which is done on MS Windows by the standalone installer is not enough. There should be a demo location already and set as last used. Also NC SPM can be downloaded, should it be checked by default?
Does somebody has a opinion on using “Location”, “GRASS Location”, or “GRASS location” consistently? You can see also “LOCATION” here and there in GRASS but I wouldn’t go that way.
Hi MIchael,
Are we going to yet another branch from the original topic
Just clarifying what I said earlier on this particular topic. Why making the start of GRASS easier is not easy.
I believe the fundamental change you speak about is worth discussing for GRASS 8.
Maybe. But certainly not for this release
I also believe that the on-the-fly reprojection on import is a feature we all agree is (very) needed (GRASS 8).
Good reasons have been discussed for not doing this, although others would like it. But again, not for this release
Finally, I believe that Vaclav small changes to the welcome page are worth agreeing upon.
Yep. And the ORIGINAL topic of a nicer splash screen.
Michael
On 23 January 2015 at 10:23, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:
Hi Vaclav,
To be clear, I agree with you that GRASS should not start with a wizard and had did not intend anyone to think that.
The ‘step 1, step 2, step 3’ was simply to put this as text on the startup dialog, to help users know which step to do in what order.
The more radical suggestion that I made today involves fundamental change of how GRASS works. Change the file structure to GISDBASE/mapsets=working directories and get rid of locations as folders. Store projection information in a different way than as locations. Maybe store projection info in each mapset, or maybe some other way. Maybe each mapset still only contains maps from a single projection to keep maps of the same projection together. It may be necessary to do other things to make sure that users don’t try to combine maps of different projections.
This would make it possible to have a simpler startup. But it would take more thought and some programming to make it work.
Michael
C. Michael Barton
Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science
Arizona State Universityvoice: 480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)
fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu
On Jan 22, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
–
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:
For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much bigger issue.
Not everybody considers my suggestion as useful-enough change and there is the hard freeze (although the functionality changes are almost zero). As a result, I don’t plan to commit it to release branch now. However, I consider it as a great improvement which I definitively want to use and I think it is very beneficial for beginners, so I will commit that to trunk when I get to it. Then we can continue in the other improvements.
To the other things. I also consider data in different projections as much bigger issue. GRASS has all the tools as described and also implemented by Markus Metz but it is too much for beginners. We should definitively make it more accessible (but it is also interesting business opportunity :-).
I still don’t understand what the user could in the dummy/LL/XY/demo location besides looking to menus and being confused from wrongly imported data or no imported data at all because of projection issues.
Michael suggests to replace startup by some wizard and this is what QGIS is doing. So, is putting everything to wizard better then the window + optional wizard? We can go that way but note the difference between QGIS and GRASS, when QGIS is running the wizard, the app is already there, wizard is just an additional window. For GRASS, it would the window you get which might be strange. Even stranger if the window would be just some small one with “Will start in location xxx” and “Change” and “Continue” buttons.
It would be also useful to analyze why the thing which is done on MS Windows by the standalone installer is not enough. There should be a demo location already and set as last used. Also NC SPM can be downloaded, should it be checked by default?
Does somebody has a opinion on using “Location”, “GRASS Location”, or “GRASS location” consistently? You can see also “LOCATION” here and there in GRASS but I wouldn’t go that way.
This thread has exposed a problem with GRASS GIS - lack of clear
vision (target auditory, "market niche").
I agree with Anna - startup screen is a problem only on the first time
and it goes away with training. We must keep in mind that GRASS is
more often launched not for the first time than for the first time -
make it easy for daily use not "I am just astrosurfing" use.
If you have been trying AutoCAD, MicroStation, you would know -
complex user interface, hard to run for the first time is not a
problem - I see new "GIS" users using those two "GIS" programs every
day and their count is not declining.
Please, let's not try to compete with QGIS in ease of use, as we will
lose due to lack of manpower and different goals (quality and power
over ease of use). Spatial data is hard. High quality analysis is
hard. Let's keep GRASS professional by providing easy way how to do it
right (and not a easy way how to do it wrong).
I would suggest to add a launch wizard that would take user through
location -> mapset etc. steps with nice explanations, etc. and nice
chekcbox "Do not show this wizard next time" - thus first time runners
would get their "let me google this for you" type hand holding, but it
would be easy to keep powerful startup screen for daily use.
Just 0.02
Māris.
2015-01-22 17:27 GMT+02:00 Anna Petrášová <kratochanna@gmail.com>:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com>
wrote:Hi,
2015-01-22 9:48 GMT+01:00 Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork@gmail.com>:
> A suggestion for a compromise:
>
> Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like
> "Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y"
> nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsets
>
> Only two buttons: OK, Change
> Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen.
>
> The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would
> reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome
> screen. It would also give more space for a little graphic
>
> Location and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist,
> create a new GISDBASE in the user's home, put the demolocation in it
> and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that).it make sense to me, I really like this idea. Martin
I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset quite
often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation
should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just hits
Start GRASS on the current welcome dialog and there is no need for the
minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It creates
grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not in
home.What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not really
the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to
automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work
and explanation and it's useful not just for beginners. This is a topic for
a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what we
decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented.
Especially when user will start with empty location, they will want to
import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of cases
when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they get
and don't read.Any opinion on what can we do for this release?
Anna
--
Martin Landa
http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
_______________________________________________
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev_______________________________________________
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Maris Nartiss <maris.gis@gmail.com> wrote:
This thread has exposed a problem with GRASS GIS - lack of clear
vision (target auditory, "market niche").
Perhaps rather different visions... comes with being open source with an
active and open community
I agree with Anna - startup screen is a problem only on the first time
and it goes away with training. We must keep in mind that GRASS is
more often launched not for the first time than for the first time -
make it easy for daily use not "I am just astrosurfing" use.
+2.. really couldn't agree more
If you have been trying AutoCAD, MicroStation, you would know -
complex user interface, hard to run for the first time is not a
problem - I see new "GIS" users using those two "GIS" programs every
day and their count is not declining.Please, let's not try to compete with QGIS in ease of use, as we will
lose due to lack of manpower and different goals (quality and power
over ease of use). Spatial data is hard. High quality analysis is
hard. Let's keep GRASS professional by providing easy way how to do it
right (and not a easy way how to do it wrong).
The easy way to do it right.. one of the important reasons I started to use
GRASS and made me stick with it.
I would suggest to add a launch wizard that would take user through
location -> mapset etc. steps with nice explanations, etc. and nice
chekcbox "Do not show this wizard next time" - thus first time runners
would get their "let me google this for you" type hand holding, but it
would be easy to keep powerful startup screen for daily use.Just 0.02
Māris.2015-01-22 17:27 GMT+02:00 Anna Petrášová <kratochanna@gmail.com>:
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2015-01-22 9:48 GMT+01:00 Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork@gmail.com>:
>> > A suggestion for a compromise:
>> >
>> > Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like
>> > "Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y"
>> > nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsets
>> >
>> > Only two buttons: OK, Change
>> > Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen.
>> >
>> > The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would
>> > reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome
>> > screen. It would also give more space for a little graphic
>> >
>> > Location and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist,
>> > create a new GISDBASE in the user's home, put the demolocation in it
>> > and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that).
>>
>> it make sense to me, I really like this idea. Martin
>
>
> I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset
quite
> often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation
> should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just
hits
> Start GRASS on the current welcome dialog and there is no need for the
> minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It
creates
> grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not
in
> home.
>
> What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not
really
> the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to
> automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work
> and explanation and it's useful not just for beginners. This is a topic
for
> a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what
we
> decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented.
> Especially when user will start with empty location, they will want to
> import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of
cases
> when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they
get
> and don't read.
>
> Any opinion on what can we do for this release?
>
> Anna
>>
>>
>> --
>> Martin Landa
>> http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
>> http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
>> _______________________________________________
>> grass-dev mailing list
>> grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> grass-dev mailing list
> grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
_______________________________________________
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Maris Nartiss <maris.gis@gmail.com> wrote:
This thread has exposed a problem with GRASS GIS - lack of clear
vision (target auditory, "market niche").
Perhaps rather different visions... comes with being open source with an
active and open community
I agree with Anna - startup screen is a problem only on the first time
and it goes away with training. We must keep in mind that GRASS is
more often launched not for the first time than for the first time -
make it easy for daily use not "I am just astrosurfing" use.
+2.. really couldn't agree more
If you have been trying AutoCAD, MicroStation, you would know -
complex user interface, hard to run for the first time is not a
problem - I see new "GIS" users using those two "GIS" programs every
day and their count is not declining.Please, let's not try to compete with QGIS in ease of use, as we will
lose due to lack of manpower and different goals (quality and power
over ease of use). Spatial data is hard. High quality analysis is
hard. Let's keep GRASS professional by providing easy way how to do it
right (and not a easy way how to do it wrong).
The easy way to do it right.. one of the important reasons I started to use
GRASS and made me stick with it.
I would suggest to add a launch wizard that would take user through
location -> mapset etc. steps with nice explanations, etc. and nice
chekcbox "Do not show this wizard next time" - thus first time runners
would get their "let me google this for you" type hand holding, but it
would be easy to keep powerful startup screen for daily use.Just 0.02
Māris.2015-01-22 17:27 GMT+02:00 Anna Petrášová <kratochanna@gmail.com>:
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2015-01-22 9:48 GMT+01:00 Markus Metz <markus.metz.giswork@gmail.com>:
>> > A suggestion for a compromise:
>> >
>> > Have a minimal welcome screen that says something like
>> > "Starting GRASS GIS in location X, mapset Y"
>> > nothing else, no list of all the available locations and mapsets
>> >
>> > Only two buttons: OK, Change
>> > Make OK the default, Change will bring up the current welcome screen.
>> >
>> > The user has then just to hit enter and GRASS is running. This would
>> > reduce the (confusing) amount of information on the current welcome
>> > screen. It would also give more space for a little graphic
>> >
>> > Location and mapset can be taken from GISRC, if that does not exist,
>> > create a new GISDBASE in the user's home, put the demolocation in it
>> > and use this (I think the wingrass installer is already doing that).
>>
>> it make sense to me, I really like this idea. Martin
>
>
> I am not particularly fond of this idea, I change location and mapset
quite
> often, so this is additional step. I agree GISDBASE and the demolocation
> should be already there during the first start. Then the user can just
hits
> Start GRASS on the current welcome dialog and there is no need for the
> minimal welcome screen. It works like this for Windows already. It
creates
> grassdata in My Documents if I remember correctly, I am not sure why not
in
> home.
>
> What I struggle with when explaining students how to use GRASS is not
really
> the welcome screen but reprojecting data. If we would find a way to
> automatically reproject data during import, that would save a lot of work
> and explanation and it's useful not just for beginners. This is a topic
for
> a different thread, how exactly it should be implemented. No matter what
we
> decide to do with the starting of grass, this should be implemented.
> Especially when user will start with empty location, they will want to
> import their data and then the reprojection is crucial. I saw a lot of
cases
> when they just override the projection check to overcome the error they
get
> and don't read.
>
> Any opinion on what can we do for this release?
>
> Anna
>>
>>
>> --
>> Martin Landa
>> http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
>> http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
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>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
>
>
>
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On 23 January 2015 at 08:34, Maris Nartiss <maris.gis@gmail.com> wrote:
Please, let's not try to compete with QGIS in ease of use, as we will
lose due to lack of manpower and different goals (quality and power
over ease of use). Spatial data is hard. High quality analysis is
hard. Let's keep GRASS professional by providing easy way how to do it
right (and not a easy way how to do it wrong).
+100
Just 0.02
Māris.
--
ciao
Luca
http://gis.cri.fmach.it/delucchi/
www.lucadelu.org
Hi,
my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and walk away (“too difficult”). Yes, and they will likely not read the manual but just take another GIS.
This is a multiple times reported fact.
Let’s solve this. Otherwise it is too sad.
Markus
PS: the current screen may optionally remain.
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 5:53 AM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:
Hi Vaclav,
To be clear, I agree with you that GRASS should not start with a wizard
and had did not intend anyone to think that.The ‘step 1, step 2, step 3’ was simply to put this as text on the
startup dialog, to help users know which step to do in what order.The more radical suggestion that I made today involves fundamental
change of how GRASS works. Change the file structure to
GISDBASE/mapsets=working directories and get rid of locations as folders.
Store projection information in a different way than as locations. Maybe
store projection info in each mapset, or maybe some other way. Maybe each
mapset still only contains maps from a single projection to keep maps of
the same projection together.
That seems like fundamental to me, by allowing to mix maps with different
projections in one mapset we would loose the checks that ensures the
correct handling of data, one of the very strong points of GRASS.
It may be necessary to do other things to make sure that users don’t try
to combine maps of different projections.This would make it possible to have a simpler startup. But it would take
more thought and some programming to make it work.
The current database set up is really robust (it is fairly difficult to
mess up the database) and at the same time flexible (one can easily move
around mapsets or location/mapsets). Perhaps the same can be achieved in
different ways, but please let's not sacrifice this just to make it
possible to make a simpler startup.
The whole issue of locations and mapsets may be confusing for the first
time users, but in my experience this is just an initial hurdle, after
which the whole structure is actually quite helpful in keeping one on top
of the data (especially if you have to deal with different data sources
with different projections).
Michael
____________________
C. Michael Barton
Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Head, Graduate Faculty in Complex Adaptive Systems Science
Arizona State Universityvoice: 480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-965-8130/727-9746 (CSDC)
fax: 480-965-7671 (SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.eduOn Jan 22, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:For this release, we need to focus on just tweaking the current startup
screen and doing better graphics for the splash. The other topic is a much
bigger issue.Not everybody considers my suggestion as useful-enough change and there
is the hard freeze (although the functionality changes are almost zero). As
a result, I don't plan to commit it to release branch now. However, I
consider it as a great improvement which I definitively want to use and I
think it is very beneficial for beginners, so I will commit that to trunk
when I get to it. Then we can continue in the other improvements.To the other things. I also consider data in different projections as
much bigger issue. GRASS has all the tools as described and also
implemented by Markus Metz but it is too much for beginners. We should
definitively make it more accessible (but it is also interesting business
opportunity :-).I still don't understand what the user could in the dummy/LL/XY/demo
location besides looking to menus and being confused from wrongly imported
data or no imported data at all because of projection issues.Michael suggests to replace startup by some wizard and this is what QGIS
is doing. So, is putting everything to wizard better then the window +
optional wizard? We can go that way but note the difference between QGIS
and GRASS, when QGIS is running the wizard, the app is already there,
wizard is just an additional window. For GRASS, it would the window you get
which might be strange. Even stranger if the window would be just some
small one with "Will start in location xxx" and "Change" and "Continue"
buttons.It would be also useful to analyze why the thing which is done on MS
Windows by the standalone installer is not enough. There should be a demo
location already and set as last used. Also NC SPM can be downloaded,
should it be checked by default?Does somebody has a opinion on using "Location", "GRASS Location", or
"GRASS location" consistently? You can see also "LOCATION" here and there
in GRASS but I wouldn't go that way._______________________________________________
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On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 9:20 AM, Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org> wrote:
Hi,
my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many
potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and
walk away ("too difficult"). Yes, and they will likely not read the manual
but just take another GIS.
This is a multiple times reported fact.Let's solve this. Otherwise it is too sad.
I agree, but I think we should be careful to weight in the reasons why
users stay with GRASS GIS as well. But that is perhaps not as much about
creating a better/alternative welcome screen and more about some of the
more radical changes proposed.
Markus
PS: the current screen may optionally remain.
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On Jan 23, 2015 9:26 AM, “Paulo van Breugel” <p.vanbreugel@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 9:20 AM, Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org> wrote:
Hi,
my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and walk away (“too difficult”). Yes, and they will likely not read the manual but just take another GIS.
This is a multiple times reported fact.Let’s solve this. Otherwise it is too sad.
I agree, but I think we should be careful to weight in the reasons why users stay with GRASS GIS as well.
If you reread my comment, it was about people new to GRASS. My personal objective with the new release us to get the user community enlarged.
But that is perhaps not as much about creating a better/alternative welcome screen
Indeed it is. Believe me, I am following the community for 15+ years now.
and more about some of the more radical changes proposed.
This is not related to this thread but something for GRASS 8.
Markus
PS: the current screen may optionally remain.
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Hi,
2015-01-23 9:20 GMT+01:00 Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org>:
my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many
potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and
walk away ("too difficult"). Yes, and they will likely not read the manual
but just take another GIS.
This is a multiple times reported fact.
I have met a lot of GIS specialists who told me: I tried several times
to use GRASS in different decades and I end up with the same result, I
didn't managed to get my data in, so I gave up.
It' a sign in my eyes that we should think how to simplify this step
Martin
--
Martin Landa
http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 11:16 AM, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi,
2015-01-23 9:20 GMT+01:00 Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org>:
> my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many
> potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and
> walk away ("too difficult"). Yes, and they will likely not read the
manual
> but just take another GIS.
> This is a multiple times reported fact.I have met a lot of GIS specialists who told me: I tried several times
to use GRASS in different decades and I end up with the same result, I
didn't managed to get my data in, so I gave up.It' a sign in my eyes that we should think how to simplify this step
That isn't a terribly good sign indeed... but, and I am asking, not trying
to counter your argument.. is this not often a result to stricter data
requirements of GRASS rather then difficulty of (start-up) menu's? I know
GRASS reasonably well, but still am sometimes struggling to import a data
layer that opens without problem in QGIS (using the right projection,
etc.). Anyway, that's another subject of course.
Martin
--
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http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
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On 23 January 2015 at 15:46, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
2015-01-23 9:20 GMT+01:00 Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org>:
> my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many
> potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and
> walk away ("too difficult"). Yes, and they will likely not read the
manual
> but just take another GIS.
> This is a multiple times reported fact.I have met a lot of GIS specialists who told me: I tried several times
to use GRASS in different decades and I end up with the same result, I
didn't managed to get my data in, so I gave up.Yes, I also had those experiences told to me.
Is it possible to open GRASS GIS wxGUI without setting the
GISDB/Location/mapset yet?
Then from "inside the opened software" you will need to go through those
steps anyway before doing anything...
Would that make any psychological difference?
It' a sign in my eyes that we should think how to simplify this step
Martin
--
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http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
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Yann Chemin <ychemin@gmail.com> writes:
On 23 January 2015 at 15:46, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
2015-01-23 9:20 GMT+01:00 Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org>:
> my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many
> potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen and
> walk away ("too difficult"). Yes, and they will likely not read the
manual
> but just take another GIS.
> This is a multiple times reported fact.I have met a lot of GIS specialists who told me: I tried several times
to use GRASS in different decades and I end up with the same result, I
didn't managed to get my data in, so I gave up.Yes, I also had those experiences told to me.
Is it possible to open GRASS GIS wxGUI without setting the
GISDB/Location/mapset yet?
Then from "inside the opened software" you will need to go through those
steps anyway before doing anything...
Would that make any psychological difference?
I think this would make a huge difference - especially if the creation
could be done by triggerd upon import and
- asking for a directory (for the db),
- name of the location,
- name of the mapset, and
- taking the other parameter (projection, extend) from the data to be
imported.
Until a mapset is opened, the non-usable menu items could be greyed
out.
Rainer
It' a sign in my eyes that we should think how to simplify this step
Martin
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http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
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email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982
On 23 January 2015 at 16:49, Rainer M Krug <Rainer@krugs.de> wrote:
Yann Chemin <ychemin@gmail.com> writes:
> On 23 January 2015 at 15:46, Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2015-01-23 9:20 GMT+01:00 Markus Neteler <neteler@osgeo.org>:
>> > my motivation to discuss the current welcome screen is that too many
>> > potential new users try to launch GRASS, do not get past that screen
and
>> > walk away ("too difficult"). Yes, and they will likely not read the
>> manual
>> > but just take another GIS.
>> > This is a multiple times reported fact.
>>
>> I have met a lot of GIS specialists who told me: I tried several times
>> to use GRASS in different decades and I end up with the same result, I
>> didn't managed to get my data in, so I gave up.
>>
>> Yes, I also had those experiences told to me.
> Is it possible to open GRASS GIS wxGUI without setting the
> GISDB/Location/mapset yet?
> Then from "inside the opened software" you will need to go through those
> steps anyway before doing anything...
> Would that make any psychological difference?I think this would make a huge difference - especially if the creation
could be done by triggerd upon import andhmm that would be cool !
running r(v).in.* without GISDBASE or Location or mapset could trigger a
wizard to set them up...
- asking for a directory (for the db),
- name of the location,
- name of the mapset, and
- taking the other parameter (projection, extend) from the data to be
imported.Until a mapset is opened, the non-usable menu items could be greyed
out.
Sounds like a nice option, as it will direct newbies to modules that import
data (then trigger the creation wizard)
Rainer
>
>
>> It' a sign in my eyes that we should think how to simplify this step
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> --
>> Martin Landa
>> http://geo.fsv.cvut.cz/gwiki/Landa
>> http://gismentors.eu/mentors/landa
>> _______________________________________________
>> grass-dev mailing list
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>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
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email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982
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