[GRASS5] New GIS Manager version

[cmbarton]

IR17;ve just committed a fairly major update to the GIS Manager to the cvs for GRASS 6.1.

It is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But it still has a number of new features that I hope will continue to make the many functions of GRASS more accessible. I’ve also posted it to my website at

http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton/files/grass_gismgr/

The file is GIS_manager050912.tgz

It includes a replacement $GISBASE/etc/dm directory with all files and a new script, d.out.file, for the $GISBASE/scripts directory.

One of the main features of the GIS Manager update is that all major display functions are now GIS Manager layers with options panels. This makes them much easier to manipulate AND to save in workspaces. All options panels now have integrated help buttons. I also added a print to default printer via lpr in the file menu. This lets you print what you see on the screen (assuming your default printer is configured correctly). New updates to ps.map recently committed to the cvs provide another way to get nice printed output. Note that the printer icon remains a link to print ONLY some raster, vector, and label files via ps.map.

The new format made the old “display” menu redundant and it has been removed (although all modules and their TclTk interactive dialogs are still available from the command line). This led to a little rearrangement of the menu structure. Several items have moved to file: primarily gis file management functions (this was a suggestion a long time back). The GIS menu (which some people didn’t like) has changed to a configuration menu. Slope arrows in raster cells moved to raster/terrain and histograms moved to image/reports and stats. The remaining entries from the old display menu that are not in other locations or GIS Manager layers are primarily for programming (d.linegraph).

The GIS Manager is somewhat more compact, with a new arrangement of functions: monitor control down the left side, general display controls and tools on the top toolbar and layers on bottom toolbar. I’ve also added color. Grey is OK for the eyes, but grey on grey is hard to see and pretty dull. Grass is green, so the GIS Manager is green.

The new script (d.out.file) replaces and expands d.out.png. It makes it easy to save the current display monitor to various graphic file formats (along with PNG and PNM, it adds JPEG, TIF, and BMP with compression options for PNG and JPEG). It uses the GRASS PNG driver and gdal because they come with all GRASS installations. Other utilities (e.g., netpbm and imagemagick) have more options but are not required for a GRASS installation.

Let me know what works and what doesn’t. Several members of the developers list have helped me test it pretty thoroughly, but I probably missed something somewhere.

Enjoy!
Michael

---

Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA

voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton

[Otto_Dassau2]

Am Freitag, 16. September 2005 03:16 schrieb Michael Barton:

I¹ve just committed a fairly major update to the GIS Manager to the cvs for
GRASS 6.1.

Hi Michael,

I tested some of the new features in the d.m and like it very much. Thanks a
lot for your work!

It is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But it still has a number of
new features that I hope will continue to make the many functions of GRASS
more accessible. I¹ve also posted it to my website at

<http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton/files/grass_gismgr/&gt;

The file is GIS_manager050912.tgz

It includes a replacement $GISBASE/etc/dm directory with all files and a
new script, d.out.file, for the $GISBASE/scripts directory.

One of the main features of the GIS Manager update is that all major
display functions are now GIS Manager layers with options panels. This
makes them much easier to manipulate AND to save in workspaces. All options
panels now have integrated help buttons.

This is a great idea, and it works well, but I think another button maybe with
a simple question mark and not the green grass logo on it would be more
intuitive. I know, there is already a similar button to query maps. So maybe
a button with an "i" for information would make sense?

I also added a print to default
printer via lpr in the file menu. This lets you print what you see on the
screen (assuming your default printer is configured correctly).

Here I get following error message:
lpr: error - unable to access "print.png" - No such file or directory

there was no file print.png in the current directory or on my machine...

New updates
to ps.map recently committed to the cvs provide another way to get nice
printed output. Note that the printer icon remains a link to print ONLY
some raster, vector, and label files via ps.map.

The new format made the old ³display² menu redundant and it has been
removed (although all modules and their TclTk interactive dialogs are still
available from the command line). This led to a little rearrangement of
the menu structure. Several items have moved to file: primarily gis file
management functions (this was a suggestion a long time back).

The GIS menu (which some people didn¹t like) has changed to a configuration
menu.

good idea

Slope
arrows in raster cells moved to raster/terrain and histograms moved to
image/reports and stats. The remaining entries from the old display menu
that are not in other locations or GIS Manager layers are primarily for
programming (d.linegraph).

I tested some buttons.

RGB HIS button:

- When I only choose 2 maps on the command line normally you get a message
like: ERROR: Required parameter <blue> not set:
- using d.m you get a error message "child process exited abnormally" that
nobody understands.

Maybe in this context I find it difficult to use the interactive menus,
because you do not know, which parameter or map is needed and which is
optional. On the command line you get an error message that tells you, if you
missed a parameter or map name, but using the interactive menus, you get
mistakable error message as described above.

Maybe it would be helpfull to mark parameters that have to be set. And it
would be very helpful if the error messages are understandable.

The GIS Manager is somewhat more compact, with a new arrangement of
functions: monitor control down the left side, general display controls and
tools on the top toolbar and layers on bottom toolbar.

I like this a lot. To me the new arrangement makes sense!

I¹ve also added
color. Grey is OK for the eyes, but grey on grey is hard to see and pretty
dull. Grass is green, so the GIS Manager is green.

as mentioned before, would it be possible to offer the user to change the
color? I think it is a matter of taste, but not everybody will like this, I
guess. For me it looks a bit too flashy.

The new script (d.out.file) replaces and expands d.out.png. It makes it
easy to save the current display monitor to various graphic file formats
(along with PNG and PNM, it adds JPEG, TIF, and BMP with compression
options for PNG and JPEG). It uses the GRASS PNG driver and gdal because
they come with all GRASS installations. Other utilities (e.g., netpbm and
imagemagick) have more options but are not required for a GRASS
installation.

The script is in the CVS but not added to the Makefile, so it is not copied
during the make install command.

Let me know what works and what doesn¹t. Several members of the developers
list have helped me test it pretty thoroughly, but I probably missed
something somewhere.

it is really fun playing around with the display manager and the new
arrangement of tools make it more intuitive, at least for me.

thanks a lot
   Otto

[Markus_Neteler1]

[Reposting this message:
this message got trapped in the spam filter, it's from September]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 09:26:05AM -0700, Michael Barton wrote:

Otto,

Thanks very much for your comments. See below.

Michael
______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA

voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton

> From: Otto Dassau <dassau@gdf-hannover.de>
> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:21:07 +0200
> To: <grass5@grass.itc.it>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS5] New GIS Manager version
>
> Am Freitag, 16. September 2005 03:16 schrieb Michael Barton:
>> I©öve just committed a fairly major update to the GIS Manager to the cvs for
>> GRASS 6.1.
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> I tested some of the new features in the d.m and like it very much. Thanks a
> lot for your work!
>
>> It is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But it still has a number of
>> new features that I hope will continue to make the many functions of GRASS
>> more accessible. I©öve also posted it to my website at
>>
>> <http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton/files/grass_gismgr/&gt;
>>
>> The file is GIS_manager050912.tgz
>>
>> It includes a replacement $GISBASE/etc/dm directory with all files and a
>> new script, d.out.file, for the $GISBASE/scripts directory.
>>
>> One of the main features of the GIS Manager update is that all major
>> display functions are now GIS Manager layers with options panels. This
>> makes them much easier to manipulate AND to save in workspaces. All options
>> panels now have integrated help buttons.
>
> This is a great idea, and it works well, but I think another button maybe with
> a simple question mark and not the green grass logo on it would be more
> intuitive. I know, there is already a similar button to query maps. So maybe
> a button with an "i" for information would make sense?
>

I think people can get used to the grass help button in the panels pretty
quickly, but I have no problem adding a question mark. BUT we would need to
agree on a new icon for query. Does an "i" work for everyone--including
people whose native language is NOT english? This follows the ESRI and QGIS
usage. I'm open to other query icon suggestions.

>> I also added a print to default
>> printer via lpr in the file menu. This lets you print what you see on the
>> screen (assuming your default printer is configured correctly).
>
> Here I get following error message:
> lpr: error - unable to access "print.png" - No such file or directory
>
> there was no file print.png in the current directory or on my machine...

This is fixed in the cvs

>
>> New updates
>> to ps.map recently committed to the cvs provide another way to get nice
>> printed output. Note that the printer icon remains a link to print ONLY
>> some raster, vector, and label files via ps.map.
>>
>> The new format made the old ©ødisplay©÷ menu redundant and it has been
>> removed (although all modules and their TclTk interactive dialogs are still
>> available from the command line). This led to a little rearrangement of
>> the menu structure. Several items have moved to file: primarily gis file
>> management functions (this was a suggestion a long time back).
>
>> The GIS menu (which some people didn©öt like) has changed to a configuration
>> menu.
>
> good idea
>
>> Slope
>> arrows in raster cells moved to raster/terrain and histograms moved to
>> image/reports and stats. The remaining entries from the old display menu
>> that are not in other locations or GIS Manager layers are primarily for
>> programming (d.linegraph).
>
> I tested some buttons.
>
> RGB HIS button:
>
> - When I only choose 2 maps on the command line normally you get a message
> like: ERROR: Required parameter <blue> not set:
> - using d.m you get a error message "child process exited abnormally" that
> nobody understands.
>
> Maybe in this context I find it difficult to use the interactive menus,
> because you do not know, which parameter or map is needed and which is
> optional. On the command line you get an error message that tells you, if you
> missed a parameter or map name, but using the interactive menus, you get
> mistakable error message as described above.
>
> Maybe it would be helpfull to mark parameters that have to be set. And it
> would be very helpful if the error messages are understandable.

TclTk errors are pretty incomprehensible unless you press the detail button,
where it gives you more information than you want. I don't know how to
change this, but would welcome help from someone more knowledgeable.

>
>> The GIS Manager is somewhat more compact, with a new arrangement of
>> functions: monitor control down the left side, general display controls and
>> tools on the top toolbar and layers on bottom toolbar.
>
> I like this a lot. To me the new arrangement makes sense!
>

Thanks. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to do this and I
still feel it's a bit more of a hack than I'd like. But I'm glad you agree
about the functionality.

>> I©öve also added
>> color. Grey is OK for the eyes, but grey on grey is hard to see and pretty
>> dull. Grass is green, so the GIS Manager is green.
>
> as mentioned before, would it be possible to offer the user to change the
> color? I think it is a matter of taste, but not everybody will like this, I
> guess. For me it looks a bit too flashy.
>

This requires someone to write a GIS Manager configuration window that could
be called from the config menu. It's possible, but I don't know how to do
it. I will think about it when I have a bit more time.

>> The new script (d.out.file) replaces and expands d.out.png. It makes it
>> easy to save the current display monitor to various graphic file formats
>> (along with PNG and PNM, it adds JPEG, TIF, and BMP with compression
>> options for PNG and JPEG). It uses the GRASS PNG driver and gdal because
>> they come with all GRASS installations. Other utilities (e.g., netpbm and
>> imagemagick) have more options but are not required for a GRASS
>> installation.
>
> The script is in the CVS but not added to the Makefile, so it is not copied
> during the make install command.
>

Fixed in the cvs

>> Let me know what works and what doesn©öt. Several members of the developers
>> list have helped me test it pretty thoroughly, but I probably missed
>> something somewhere.
>
> it is really fun playing around with the display manager and the new
> arrangement of tools make it more intuitive, at least for me.

I'm glad that it's easier to use. That's the goal.

Cheers
Michael

>
> thanks a lot
> Otto
>
>
>