The QGIS GRASS plugin is back

For me, one of the killer features of QGIS has always been the integration with GRASS GIS. With the GRASS GIS plugin, introduced about 10 years ago, QGIS basically provided an alternative interface for GRASS GIS. Sadly, it didn’t work well with GRASS GIS 7. So you can imagine how happy I was to see this crowd funding campaign, started in March this year by Radim Blazek, author of most parts of original GRASS plugin implementation, to upgrade the plugin.

GRASS 7.0 is out, but the development continues unabated

Just a thumbs-up for the developers of GRASS GIS, who evidently do not rest on their laurels since their release of GRASS GIS 7.0. Below one of those more visible new features in the GRASS GIS development version which make live just that much easier.

A really welcome addition to the drop-down menu for selection of raster or vector layers. It now shows the open maps under a separate header.

Five new awesome QGIS features

Check out this post on Nathans QGIS and GIS blog: Five new awesomely awesome QGIS features.

See also this blog post by Anita Graser, who describes improvements to the Symbol manager in more detail.

New command dialogue styles for GRASS GIS

In the latest development version of GRASS GIS (version 7.0) there is now the option to switch between different command dialogue styles. There are 4 styles, 3 of them are new and they are providing platform native look. The two basic styles inherit system colours, which might be good news for people with unusual themes. See the announcement in the GRASS-dev email list for more information.  And check out some screenshots below.