Consistency in adjectives used for GRASS' "geographic region"

[nikos]

1. In the man(ual) page of g.region one reads in the Description: boundary definitions for the geographic region

2. The parameters talk about "current region"

3. In the Map Display the "Zoom to..." button contains the term "computational region"

Wouldn't it make sense to use everywhere only one term? Something like "active region" or "computational region" or just "region".

[hamish]

see also #320, as they are both about the semantics and interpretation of the "region" term. I doubt we can ever make everyone happy with one term for complex ideas, but we can focus on explaining well in the documentation about what we mean by each version and then being consistent with it.

wrt this ticket, the g.region module is concerned with the mapset's WINDow file. This is the current working region & resolution settings which processing modules will use. This long predates any GUI version.

For non-GUI use only this region matters.

"Computational region" is used by the GUI to distinguish the above region from the display/rendering region in the map display window. Perhaps the GUI should not use the term "region" at all unless it is referring to the computational one? Perhaps it should talk about "zoom" instead?

Hamish

[nikos]

Replying to hamish:

...but we can focus on explaining well in the documentation about what we mean by each version and then being consistent with it.

I would like to see as less as possible different terms and consistency along the documentation.

wrt this ticket, the g.region module is concerned with the mapset's WINDow file. This is the current working region & resolution settings which processing modules will use. This long predates any GUI version.

For non-GUI use only this region matters.

"Computational region" is used by the GUI to distinguish the above region from the display/rendering region in the map display window. Perhaps the GUI should not use the term "region" at all unless it is referring to the computational one? Perhaps it should talk about "zoom" instead?

I am not sure what would be best. However, I want to emphasize that "region", being one of the most important elements of GRASS, is a bit difficult to understand in the beginning. It's all about clear and consistent terms/descriptions (after all, isn't it?).