[Gretl-devel] named lists in the GUI

Second instalment on design suggestions. Lee Adkins suggested giving named lists of series a more integral place in the gretl GUI (e.g. in the model specification dialog); and Jack suggested an easy way of defining a list in the GUI, namely selecting a bunch of series in the main window, right-clicking, and choosing "Make this a list" (or some such). Jack's suggestion would be easy to implement, but before I do that we need to think through exactly how we might use lists in the GUI. At present lists are mostly a scripting thing: the main (only?) exception is the use of lists as arguments to use-defined functions. If a function package with a GUI interface wants a list of regressors, for example, the function dialog provides a means of defining a list (or selecting from among any lists that are already defined). How might named lists be brought into the existing model specification dialog (for built-in estimators)? My first thought is that the current model specification dialog is nicely simple in some cases (OLS) and about as complicated as is reasonable in others (ARMA). We would not want (I think) to introduce an additional selection box showing lists alongside that showing series. Could we include lists in the "available series" boxes but colored differently (series in black, lists in blue or red or something)? I'm not sure, but I don't want to invest effort in this unless and until we have a plausible design concept that doesn't make the model spec dialog fall over from excessive complexity. Allin