[GRASS-dev] New splash screen for GRASS GIS 7?

GRASS GIS GRASS GIS developer
1

____________________
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

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

Michael

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:26 AM, grass-dev-request@lists.osgeo.org<mailto:grass-dev-request@lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

From: Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com<mailto:wenzeslaus@gmail.com>>
Cc: "grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org<mailto:grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org>" <grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org<mailto:grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org>>
To: Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net<mailto:nik@nikosalexandris.net>>
Date: January 20, 2015 at 9:25:51 AM MST
Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] New splash screen for GRASS GIS 7?

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net<mailto:nik@nikosalexandris.net>> wrote:
On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:
Hi,

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu<mailto:hmitaso@ncsu.edu>>:
I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world's leading open source GIS

What about

"GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world."

I like more the "Bringing advanced..." than "Opening advanced..." because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be "GRASS GIS", not "GRASS" as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

2

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

3

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

4

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I'm not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should
change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the
picture and the sentence "Welcome to...open source GIS". This will save a
lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for
example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with
VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The
other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add
more things. There is "one row" for error message but I would like to see
this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general
help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and
warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window,
and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is
actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software.
I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they
start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be
nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main
start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

Sorry for the confusion. I'm speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window

which actually appears *before* the splash screen and it has an old school
picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start
GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are
no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS
alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title
text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page
where filename, title and content don't match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:
>
> I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…
>
> Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double
meaning of Opening…
>
> I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I
think the white background looks classier.
>
As I said, I'm more interested in changing page titles then the splash
screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white
background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I'm just not
sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be
anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name
of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the
module name).

Vaclav

> Michael
>
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <
nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:
>>
>> On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:
>>>
>>> 2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:
>>>>
>>>> I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps
GRASS GIS?)
>>>>
>>>>> GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.
>>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> Much more better than the current:
>>>
>>> The world's leading open source GIS
>>
>> What about
>>
>> "GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world."
>>
>
> I like more the "Bringing advanced..." than "Opening advanced..."
because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages
of openness (yet).
>
> Note that it should be "GRASS GIS", not "GRASS" as much as possible.
>
> We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used
as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages
where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for
suggestion.
>
> Vaclav

5

OK. I was talking about the Medieval map, which was the start of the thread. I’d suggested the first real world map, with some welcome text. Even better would be doing something with visual impact with a historic map or some other display (we already have OpenGL loaded…). But that would take someone with the needed graphic skills. A colorful map and some good text is still tasteful.

I also agree that the start screen needs some love too. It is boring grey and has a dated image at the top—which is what it seems you are talking about, right?

Your nice green lettering on a light background would give it a nice clean look. FWIW, it would be classy to have the entire dialog an equally lighter shade too, with green or dark grey lettering in a nice font for the text outside of the wxPython control widgets.

I still wouldn’t put error messages on this dialog because it already has a lot of information and controls, and we need people to focus on what is needed to run GRASS. Maybe a more prominent help button because no one seems to notice it.

Michael

···

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

Sorry for the confusion. I’m speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window which actually appears before the splash screen and it has an old school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

6

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 12:12 AM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:49 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I'm not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should
change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the
picture and the sentence "Welcome to...open source GIS". This will save a
lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for
example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with
VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The
other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add
more things. There is "one row" for error message but I would like to see
this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general
help messages (e.g., what to do next).

  IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors
and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal
window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is
actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software.
I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they
start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be
nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main
start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

   Sorry for the confusion. I'm speaking about welcome/start/setup/

window which actually appears *before* the splash screen and it has an old
school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or
start GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

OK. I was talking about the Medieval map, which was the start of the
thread. I’d suggested the first real world map, with some welcome text.
Even better would be doing something with visual impact with a historic map
or some other display (we already have OpenGL loaded…). But that would take
someone with the needed graphic skills. A colorful map and some good text
is still tasteful.

I also agree that the start screen needs some love too. It is boring
grey and has a dated image at the top—which is what it seems you are
talking about, right?

Right.

Your nice green lettering on a light background would give it a nice
clean look. FWIW, it would be classy to have the entire dialog an equally
lighter shade too, with green or dark grey lettering in a nice font for the
text outside of the wxPython control widgets.

I still wouldn’t put error messages on this dialog because it already
has a lot of information and controls, and we need people to focus on what
is needed to run GRASS. Maybe a more prominent help button because no one
seems to notice it.

Thanks for the feedback, however I think we need the complete opposite.

Nobody reads the help even if the browser would open automatically. The
help included in the dialog directly (not in the tooltips), in the form of
messages focusing on "what to do next", is the right way to communicate
with user. This seems as a general (long term) trend which is widely
accepted and I consider it good.

I actually already applied this when I replaced several error dialogs by
the error like with red text for cases when gisdbase is not valid. (This
avoids user being bashed by error dialogs when gisdbase is empty or the dir
was moved.) Error messages and tips are obviously helpful for running GRASS
while some non-boring backgrounds and pictures could be distracting.

Removing the green text and the picture will buy space for additional line
or two for info and error messages while keeping the dialog smaller than it
is now. Another advantage of not having any picture at all is that it will
never get old (as happened to the current one).

The shade of gray you see should be your system color. If you believe you
see different one then it is likely a wxPython/wxWidgets bug. GRASS GIS, as
any other SW should respect the system settings as much as possible, for
example for aesthetics and accessibility reasons. Even the green text on
start button is against accessibility rules. Same with font, wxPython is
trying to use default system font. If custom font would be used, there is
no guaranty that it will be accessible on particular machine. For example,
I have really nice font by default for all the standard widgets, just the
green text (with custom font) is not really nice.

Vaclav

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

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are
no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS
alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title
text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from
others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following
page where filename, title and content don't match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu>
wrote:
>
> I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…
>
> Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double
meaning of Opening…
>
> I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I
think the white background looks classier.
>
As I said, I'm more interested in changing page titles then the splash
screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white
background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I'm just not
sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be
anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name
of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the
module name).

Vaclav

> Michael
>
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <
nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:
>>
>> On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:
>>>
>>> 2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:
>>>>
>>>> I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is.
(perhaps GRASS GIS?)
>>>>
>>>>> GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.
>>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> Much more better than the current:
>>>
>>> The world's leading open source GIS
>>
>> What about
>>
>> "GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world."
>>
>
> I like more the "Bringing advanced..." than "Opening advanced..."
because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages
of openness (yet).
>
> Note that it should be "GRASS GIS", not "GRASS" as much as possible.
>
> We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be
used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of
pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See
attachment for suggestion.
>
> Vaclav

7

Some GIS splash screens:

http://words.mixedbredie.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/qgis01.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o-bL_x1YHAU/Uzl1Fr12ccI/AAAAAAAAHWs/RHem7hUjGFU/s1600/valmiera.png
http://live.osgeo.org/_images/kosmo_splash_screen.png
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-qSzNjsg2KI/SkZyn9u7yNI/AAAAAAAACAk/muhRFmiIL7c/s400/splash.png
http://www.processamentodigital.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/QGIS26_Splash.png
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_b8ANhhOsL_Y/TObU5L2e6pI/AAAAAAAAAMs/QcMiUFtJiGc/s1600/qgis16.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/–hIILBxlAEg/VCAbutt6u6I/AAAAAAABy0A/LFPmp7KQNbo/s1600/beegis_splash.bmp
http://cartolab.udc.es/cartoweb/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Clean_buffer_splash.png
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tB80BWUKX-I/VCAbbDliO_I/AAAAAAAByzw/W0LMaL1Q86A/s1600/splash.bmp

From the legions of marketters…

···

On 21 January 2015 at 10:42, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:49 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

OK. I was talking about the Medieval map, which was the start of the thread. I’d suggested the first real world map, with some welcome text. Even better would be doing something with visual impact with a historic map or some other display (we already have OpenGL loaded…). But that would take someone with the needed graphic skills. A colorful map and some good text is still tasteful.

I also agree that the start screen needs some love too. It is boring grey and has a dated image at the top—which is what it seems you are talking about, right?

Your nice green lettering on a light background would give it a nice clean look. FWIW, it would be classy to have the entire dialog an equally lighter shade too, with green or dark grey lettering in a nice font for the text outside of the wxPython control widgets.

I still wouldn’t put error messages on this dialog because it already has a lot of information and controls, and we need people to focus on what is needed to run GRASS. Maybe a more prominent help button because no one seems to notice it.

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

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–

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

Sorry for the confusion. I’m speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window which actually appears before the splash screen and it has an old school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

8

In fact, wxPython for Mac at least, doesn’t look very Mac like. The windows versions I’ve seen don’t look particularly close to the current version of Windows either. This is unsurprising since wxPython focuses on cross-platform functionality. It needs to work the same across multiple platforms. To do that, it has a default appearance that sacrifices some degree of design elements that would make it look more like the platform it is running on. Just going with the default look in a GUI platform is not necessarily a virtue because it tends to be a lowest common denominator. However, wxPython also allows users to alter that default to some degree. It has ways of specifying fonts and colors that can propagate in equivalent ways across all platforms, for example. Giving GRASS a distinctive visual appearance is not a vice to be avoided, as long as both function and visual elements propagate in an equivalent way across multiple platforms. Design elegance can enhance functionality as well. Of course, designing an elegant as well as functional interface across multiple platforms is challenging. The iconography designed for GRASS, with a visual grammar, is a nice example of combining elegant design with functionality. We don’t always have the skills or time or other resources to do this throughout the program, of course. And interface defaults in wxPython are better than poorly executed customizations, which may function inconsistently as well as look bad. But interface customization and enhancement doesn’t need to be avoided on principle.

Michael

···

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

Sorry for the confusion. I’m speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window which actually appears before the splash screen and it has an old school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

9

This is a nice range of examples. QGIS has consistently put effort into designing spash/intro screens, with very good results. It conveys a sense of a professional product that is well-designed overall. Never flashy, but very classy.

Michael

···

On 21 January 2015 at 10:42, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:49 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

OK. I was talking about the Medieval map, which was the start of the thread. I’d suggested the first real world map, with some welcome text. Even better would be doing something with visual impact with a historic map or some other display (we already have OpenGL loaded…). But that would take someone with the needed graphic skills. A colorful map and some good text is still tasteful.

I also agree that the start screen needs some love too. It is boring grey and has a dated image at the top—which is what it seems you are talking about, right?

Your nice green lettering on a light background would give it a nice clean look. FWIW, it would be classy to have the entire dialog an equally lighter shade too, with green or dark grey lettering in a nice font for the text outside of the wxPython control widgets.

I still wouldn’t put error messages on this dialog because it already has a lot of information and controls, and we need people to focus on what is needed to run GRASS. Maybe a more prominent help button because no one seems to notice it.

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

grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev

–

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

Sorry for the confusion. I’m speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window which actually appears before the splash screen and it has an old school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav

10

I would like to add a +1 about how elegance helps adapting and eventually adopting.

This is certainly to add to the group of discussions on user workflows and user efficiency designs.

···

On 21 January 2015 at 12:28, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

In fact, wxPython for Mac at least, doesn’t look very Mac like. The windows versions I’ve seen don’t look particularly close to the current version of Windows either. This is unsurprising since wxPython focuses on cross-platform functionality. It needs to work the same across multiple platforms. To do that, it has a default appearance that sacrifices some degree of design elements that would make it look more like the platform it is running on. Just going with the default look in a GUI platform is not necessarily a virtue because it tends to be a lowest common denominator. However, wxPython also allows users to alter that default to some degree. It has ways of specifying fonts and colors that can propagate in equivalent ways across all platforms, for example. Giving GRASS a distinctive visual appearance is not a vice to be avoided, as long as both function and visual elements propagate in an equivalent way across multiple platforms. Design elegance can enhance functionality as well. Of course, designing an elegant as well as functional interface across multiple platforms is challenging. The iconography designed for GRASS, with a visual grammar, is a nice example of combining elegant design with functionality. We don’t always have the skills or time or other resources to do this throughout the program, of course. And interface defaults in wxPython are better than poorly executed customizations, which may function inconsistently as well as look bad. But interface customization and enhancement doesn’t need to be avoided on principle.

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 20, 2015, at 11:09 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 12:12 AM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:49 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

OK. I was talking about the Medieval map, which was the start of the thread. I’d suggested the first real world map, with some welcome text. Even better would be doing something with visual impact with a historic map or some other display (we already have OpenGL loaded…). But that would take someone with the needed graphic skills. A colorful map and some good text is still tasteful.

I also agree that the start screen needs some love too. It is boring grey and has a dated image at the top—which is what it seems you are talking about, right?

Right.

Your nice green lettering on a light background would give it a nice clean look. FWIW, it would be classy to have the entire dialog an equally lighter shade too, with green or dark grey lettering in a nice font for the text outside of the wxPython control widgets.

I still wouldn’t put error messages on this dialog because it already has a lot of information and controls, and we need people to focus on what is needed to run GRASS. Maybe a more prominent help button because no one seems to notice it.

Thanks for the feedback, however I think we need the complete opposite. Nobody reads the help even if the browser would open automatically. The help included in the dialog directly (not in the tooltips), in the form of messages focusing on “what to do next”, is the right way to communicate with user. This seems as a general (long term) trend which is widely accepted and I consider it good.

I actually already applied this when I replaced several error dialogs by the error like with red text for cases when gisdbase is not valid. (This avoids user being bashed by error dialogs when gisdbase is empty or the dir was moved.) Error messages and tips are obviously helpful for running GRASS while some non-boring backgrounds and pictures could be distracting.

Removing the green text and the picture will buy space for additional line or two for info and error messages while keeping the dialog smaller than it is now. Another advantage of not having any picture at all is that it will never get old (as happened to the current one).

The shade of gray you see should be your system color. If you believe you see different one then it is likely a wxPython/wxWidgets bug. GRASS GIS, as any other SW should respect the system settings as much as possible, for example for aesthetics and accessibility reasons. Even the green text on start button is against accessibility rules. Same with font, wxPython is trying to use default system font. If custom font would be used, there is no guaranty that it will be accessible on particular machine. For example, I have really nice font by default for all the standard widgets, just the green text (with custom font) is not really nice.

Vaclav

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

grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev

–

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Vaclav Petras <wenzeslaus@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m not really concerned about splash screen but I think we should change the Welcome screen/window. My suggestion is to simply remove the picture and the sentence “Welcome to…open source GIS”. This will save a lot of vertical space which will be great advantage for small screens, for example virtual box instances (the default screen size I got with VirtualBox and OSGeoLive was not enough to accommodate this window). The other reason why we need to save vertical space is actually a need to add more things. There is “one row” for error message but I would like to see this replaced by a block with info box for errors, warnings and general help messages (e.g., what to do next).

IMHO, this kind of stuff does not belong on the spash screen. Errors and warnings (hopefully there are none) already show up in the terminal window, and we have help available on the main start up screen.

The splash is an entry—and an advertisement—for GRASS. Looking nice is actually important, but especially for a piece of high end visual software. I don’t think we should make the first view that people have when they start GRASS be boring or ugly just to accommodate tiny screens. It would be nice if there are any with graphic design expertise who could weigh in here.

The splash screen is replaced shortly by the (much more prosaic) main start up screen anyway. So why not keep it something that has visual appeal.

Sorry for the confusion. I’m speaking about welcome/start/setup/ window which actually appears before the splash screen and it has an old school picture which just eats vertical space. See the following links (or start GRASS :-).

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass_start.png
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

I hope to find some time to change this tomorrow before RC2 if there are no voices against. I will remove the picture (including its ISIS alternative) and the green (motto) text. I hope to find some good title text for this welcome/startup/setup screen/window.

Please do not mess with the splash screen until we’ve heard from others.

My 2 cents worth

Michael

With this it could be interesting to revise naming of the following page where filename, title and content don’t match.

http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/helptext.html

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Michael Barton <Michael.Barton@asu.edu> wrote:

I agree with Bringing… rather than Opening…

Bringing is better English and many people would not get the double meaning of Opening…

I still like a map for the splash screen. Of the 2 logos you did, I think the white background looks classier.

As I said, I’m more interested in changing page titles then the splash screen , however I like the idea of some simple splash screen. The white background image I did could be used in trac and in manual. I’m just not sure if it is ok that it is not text but image. For the manual it should be anyway replaced by something which contains version of GRASS and the name of the module (which should be manageable since page title tag contains the module name).

Vaclav

Michael

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Alexandris <nik@nikosalexandris.net> wrote:

On 20.01.2015 11:38, Martin Landa wrote:

2015-01-20 6:18 GMT+01:00 Helena Mitasova <hmitaso@ncsu.edu>:

I like this one - I think it well represents what GRASS is. (perhaps GRASS GIS?)

GRASS. Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world.

+1

Much more better than the current:

The world’s leading open source GIS

What about

“GRASS, opening advanced geospatial technologies to the world.”

I like more the “Bringing advanced…” than “Opening advanced…” because it has emphasis on features. Not everybody understands advantages of openness (yet).

Note that it should be “GRASS GIS”, not “GRASS” as much as possible.

We can just create a image with logo+GRASS GIS+motto which could be used as splash and perhaps elsewhere too, for example in headers/titles of pages where we have just the logo and not name (Trac, manual). See attachment for suggestion.

Vaclav