Welcome dialog prevents immediate use of application

[Boudewijn Rempt]

On Wed, 24 Oct 2012, Paul Gideon Dann wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> Great work on Calligra so far.  I submitted a bug[1] that was quickly set to
> WONTFIX, with a suggestion that I bring the problem to this mailing list.  I
> noticed the desire to polish Calligra, and thought it would be a great
> opportunity to file the bug I think is the number 1 turn-off when approaching
> Calligra for the first time.
>
> The problem is the welcome dialog, that pops up when you first launch one of
> the applications.  As can be seen in my example screenshot[2], there is a lot
> of empty space, the icons are blurry and lack colour, and the "Use this
> Template" button is pretty small and tucked away.  If this dialog is to stay,
> I think it needs some serious love.

Well, it's an old discussion... This is actually the second generation 
welcome screen, the first one looked a lot like what Apple now has for 
Works 
(http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi/hacking/krita/templates.html). If 
you compile Kexi, you'll see there's yet another attempt at a welcome 
screen.

The discussions about the template icons is just as old: the problem is 
that nobody creates templates with good icons for Words or Sheets -- not 
the kind of gorgeous templates that exist for iWork -- 
http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/#easy.

And then there's the problem that we tried to have one common gui paradigm 
for very different applications. That's broken already with the toolbox 
changes in words, of course. For some applications, a welcome screen is 
really necessary because there just doesn't exist a useful blank document 
(stage, krita -- see also the welcome dialog for loimpress, or the 
discussion about the default screen l&f for gimp).

When a finnish usability group investigated calligra, it actually found 
that users didn't have a problem with the welcome screen -- many 
developers feel it is horrible, and that it _must_ be bad usability, but 
that's actually not borne out by the research.

All in all, it's a really complicated issue, which is also why not much 
action has been taken.

> More importantly, though, the dialog presents me with an immediate feeling of
> frustration: "I just want to *play* with this application; why won't it let me
> in?"

Well, that's another thing: you want to *play* with the application, the 
screen is designed for people who want *work* with the application.


I'm blocked in my attempt to open it, and am forced to think pretty hard
> about what it's asking and what kind of document I might want to write.  I
> think most people coming to Calligra probably won't know exactly what kind of
> document they want to write; they'll just want to try it out.  I believe that
> template selection or opening an existing file is something that should be
> done *after* the application has started and the user has been given a chance
> to see the workspace; ideally in a sidebar or prominent toolbar of some kind.

But that would actually mean extra steps for a user who wants to do work. 
Like currently with lowriter, where you start the application, get a more 
or less useless default document, then go new/Templates and Documents to 
select a template. The result is that most people I know load an old 
document that was created with the right template, remove the content, 
type new content -- and then if recording is on, there's an information 
leak.

> For me, this is a very serious usability concern.  Not because it prevents me
> from using the application so much (I'm a programmer too; I can tolerate these
> things), but because it presents Calligra in a very poor light from the very
> start.
>
> I hope this is all taken in the spirit it's intended: in an attempt to improve
> software that I really want to see succeed.  I've gone to some pains to bring
> this to your attention.  Whatever you do, please don't dismiss it because you
> could not achieve a consensus before, or because it might displease some of
> the community.  If some people want this dialog on startup, it should be
> possible to turn it on, but it should definitely not be there by default.

Well, I can imagine that for some applications, like words or sheets, it 
would be best to have it off by default, for other applications (stage, 
krita) it might be best on by default. And since we've lost our aspirations
at consistency across the suite already, I wouldn't object if Boemann or 
Mek would hide it by default, especially if there's a good default 
template.

Boudewijn