20001005: McIDAS-X MCGUI comments

>From: Bill Fingerhut <address@hidden>
>Organization: Lyndon State College
>Keywords: 200010051347.e95DlB102596 McIDAS-X MCGUI icons

Bill,

>I would like to suggest a change to your mcidas gui,
>mcgui. I understand that it is still in progress,
>and you may have already addressed my concerns. But
>it doesn't hurt.

Please keep the comments coming in.  I will be launching off into an
intensive MCGUI development phase coming up, so any comments you have
now will be most appreciated.

>One icon has 'bubble help' which reads "satellite image
>load" while another says "point source plot/contour". This
>mixes the pre-adde (satellite image) and adde (point source)
>, which is confusing and inconsistant.

Hmm...  In ADDE the supported dataset types are referred to as GRID,
IMAGE, POINT, and TEXT.  In order to be totally consistent ADDEwise, it
would seem that I should change "satellite image" to image and
"point source plot/contour" to "point plot/contour".  Do you agree?

>For clarity, I would
>prefer the old terminology, because many under classmen
>do not now what point source means. (Actually, a faculty
>asked me about this!)

OK.  I am so spread hammered right now, that I can't remember exactly
what the old terminology would be (seriously).  Can you refresh my memory?

>Also, I can not tell what the point source icon represents,
>which defeats the purpose of using a picture to communicate.

The icon is a large cumulus cloud with rain coming out of the bottom.
I chose these icons willy-nilly, and I don't have hardly any attachment
to them.  The icon that is really misleading is the one for image
loads.  Right now, it is a radar dish.  I want to change this to be
an icon of a satellite like GOES.

>Another icon would be much better.

If you could suggest an icon that is better suited, I will
try to find an 'xbm' file that I can use.

Thanks for the input, and please don't hold back on the suggestions!

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Oct 13 13:17:40 2000
>Subject: Re: 20001005: McIDAS-X MCGUI comments

re: Hmm...  In ADDE the supported dataset types are referred to as GRID,
IMAGE, POINT, and TEXT.  In order to be totally consistent ADDEwise, it
would seem that I should change "satellite image" to image and
"point source plot/contour" to "point plot/contour".  Do you agree?

>I think so. This icon leads the user to nids data as well as sat data,
>so image is the right term. My uncertainty comes from students
>really not knowing what image data means.

re: what old terminology would you rather see in the bubble help

>Perhaps, surface/upper air data?

re: If you could suggest an icon that is better suited, I will
try to find an 'xbm' file that I can use.

If I knew of one I would pass it along, but I don't.

re: Thanks for the input, and please don't hold back on the suggestions!

>Just trying to help. I'm glad you don't mind - if I get carried away,
>just let me know.

Bill

>From address@hidden Mon Oct 16 09:42:26 2000
>Subject: mcgui icons

Tom,

>I thought about the 'icon question' over the weekend. Finding
>one icon for point data will probably be hard, because so
>many different data sources are lumped into rtptsrc. When I
>think of upper-air data, I think of a RAOB balloon; when I
>think of surface obs, I think of an instrument shelter; when
>I try to combine these two, I think of a station model (plot)
>similar to that in GARP for surface data. If fous14 is added
>to the mix, I go blank.

Bill