Tip dialogs

[John Pybus]

Mark Shinwell wrote:
 >
> There are not that many features of Aven which are unobvious at first
> sight.  The most pertinent ones are those to do with manipulating the
> cave with the mouse, selecting stations with the mouse, etc.

I agree.  Aven isn't a complex application on a par with sophisticated 
graphics or office applications, and should avoid becoming one.

> I believe that a far better means of delivering help to the user in
> these situations would be to have more interactive information in a
> status bar.  For example, if Aven is opened without a .3d file loaded
> then it could say "Select File -> Open to load a survey" or something.
> Having got a cave on the screen, then the bar could display what the
> mouse buttons are going to do if pressed.  Say that Shift+Left produces
> rotation only, and Left produces rotate+scale or whatever.  When Left is
> pressed, the status bar can change to more specific information such as
> "Hold down Shift to rotate the cave without scaling".  You get the idea.

Back in the days when xfig was one of the more complex X11 apps around, 
I always liked the mouse button panel which showed the actions bound to 
each button at any point.  A bit of waste of space for Aven though.

John