Survex 1.1.1 test version uploaded

[andrew]

On Wednesday 2004-10-13 02:22, Olly Betts typed:
> We could add a "tip dialog" which shows a random tip on startup (or
> perhaps cycle through tips rather than actually be random).  You've
> probably seen them in other applications - they standardly have
> a checkbox for "don't show me tips on startup" so they won't irritate
> the experienced user.

Oh yes, they bl**dy will !!

If it was just one program that did this, it would be a bit of a novelty,
but there are several programs that do it, and every time I install
a piece of software for a new user, or on a new distribution, or on
a different machine, one of these pops up by default. One has to
click the little box, then close the window. This happens so often
as to be a real irritation, even if each program only ever does it
once per installation.

I have never seen a useful tip, which was relevant to anything I
wanted to do at the time it appeared. There is absolutely no
context sensitivity because they always appear at startup, when
the program has no way of knowing what sort of things you are
about to do.

Maybe, if you put an option in a plain text configuration file, off by
default, so that someone who liked these tips could, after reading
the manual and changing the option, see these tips until they, too,
had become irritated by them, then it might be acceptable.

But why would you want to write code for people who don't read
manuals ? It is just asking for ignorant stupid people to use your
software (who aren't the sort of people you want surveying caves
anyway) and wasting your time with support emails.

Better to have a pop-up box which asks a question to make sure
the user has read the manual, before allowing the user to make
use of the software...  No, I'm not suggesting you actually do this -
but it would be less irritating than the default "tip" box.

Andy