Suggestion: Make "WhatsThis" 100% complete for next release

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Dominique Devriese wrote:
> Kurt Pfeifle writes:
> 
> 
>>But I still wish to convince every developer that the WhatsThis is a
>>very very usefull feature for users
> 
> 
> Try convincing me: 

OK.  ;-)

> I have personally watched tens of new KDE users,
> and none of them have ever managed to discover the what's this stuff.
> 

I've personally trained tens of new KDE users, and none of them did
get an active encouragment by me to use WhatsThis for looking up
stuff. In fact, I have avoided the topic, because I am too much
embarrassed by showing off such an incomplete thing.

Your argument would hold true for a *lot* of KDE features. Users
will never discover them, if they are not shown. I know KDE users
of 4 years standing whom I recently showed "fish://..." in konqui,
and the splitting of windows, to enable them to drag'n'drop. They
couldn't believe that it is an "old" feature of KDE.

WhatsThis is cool and helpful. I *do* want to talk about it and
show it -- but it must be there to do so.

> As suggested elsewhere in this thread, it would imho be more useful as
> a sort of tooltip.
> 

No. Tooltips tend to pop up when you don't need them. This distracts.
And tooltips are there anyway, no? But for many explanations they
are too small/short. WhatsThis comes to your quick rescue when you
ask for it. It may even contain 100 or 200 words. If you don't need
it, it is not in your way. If you never need it, you can hide the
"?"-button away.

> About making this a priority, I don't understand why it would be more
> important than improving the usability in other ways.
> 

I didn't say (so far) "it is more important" than other usability
improvements. Because I didn't see (or am not aware of) other
specific suggestions for usability improvements.

WhatsThis is a "low hanging fruit". And it *is* a major usability
improvement if you have a direct access to explanations for widgets
and UI elements you don't immediately understand.

Achieving a specific WhatsThis-completeness goal could be precisely
measured in terms of percentage (which would neglect the quality of
its contents, but anyway...).

But maybe I'll even say one day that it is "more important" than
other usability improvements...   ;-)

> cheers
> domi
> 

Cheers,
Kurt