Tuesday 15 October 2013

Input & Graphics

Where better place to start this blog than with a discussion of the Input & Graphics tab, the traditional heart of Ranges8. Here users set up their location data and raster or vector backgrounds, importing from another source or copying from a spread sheet and pasting in. Here also the results of analyses can be viewed; edge files marking the boundaries of calculated home ranges are displayed over the location data or on the background raster, vector or image. While the user may visit other tabs, to set up and run analyses, to view tabulated results (stats) or the analysis logs, he will nearly always return to the Input & Graphics tab to view the goodies, to see results visualised and to create beautiful images for reports and papers.

With this in mind, in Ranges9, we are considering making the Input & Graphics the basis window from which all other features of Ranges expand. The tabs for the analyses, stats and log, clicking on which hides the Input & Graphics, will be replaced with buttons opening new windows. This will allow the user to view previous graphical results, stats and the analysis log at the same time. He opens another window to run an analysis, tweaking the parameters with regard to results he can see in the "always open" input & graphics.

But this is all very much a work in progress. If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to add them to the space below.



The Input & Graphics screen will be the foundation of Ranges9