Re: A netcdf suggestion (fwd)

• To: Russ Rew <russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: A netcdf suggestion (fwd)
• From: John Caron <caron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:25:33 -0600

Russ Rew wrote:

John,

Roy Mendelssohn asks whether there is a GUI interface to create
netCDF files.  I thought of ToolsUI, but it doesn't seem to do that.
Have you seen any GUIs for easily creating netCDF files?  Requiring
typing in CDL or NcML doesn't count.

I dont know of any, but its a good idea!

Incidentally, I was able to start up the ToolsUI by downloading the
.jar file and invoking

  java -Xmx512m -jar toolsUI-2.2.10.jar

Thats a pretty old file, where did you get that link?

(which is different from the "java -Xmx512m -jar toolsUI-2.2.jar" given
on the web page), but using javaws on buddy didn't work for me.  When
I clicked on

  
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf-java/v2.2/webstart/netCDFtools-2.2.jnlp

from Firefox on buddy, it brought up a Java alert box that said
"Java(TM) Loading" for about 10 seconds and then disappeared.  No
ToolsUI window appeared.

It's not any of the problems mentioned under "Possible Webstart
Problems" on the "NetCDF Tools UI" page.

I just added a "General Problem Diagnosis" section. can you try following those 
directions and seeing if we can track down the problem using them?

--Russ

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:35:54 -0700
From:    "Roy Mendelssohn" <Roy.Mendelssohn@xxxxxxxx>
To:      Russ Rew <russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: A netcdf suggestion

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Hi Russ:

In preparation for the upcoming meetings and a presentation I will be making in DC, we have been reviewing some of where we stand and what we would like to see. Lynn deWitt of my staff offered the one below, which strikes me as a good suggestion, so I am passing it on.

See you next week.

-Roy

This might already exist, but I was thinking that someone, maybe the unidata folks, should write a GUI interface to create netcdf files. Could be a spreadsheet sort of thing where you could import columns from text files or Excel or whatever. You could choose which columns would be the "dimensions", have boxes where you could enter attributes, have choices of "conventions", etc. It would really help non-programmers (ie most people these days) write proper netCDF files.