[KPhotoAlbum] splash screen masks dialog box

[Dotan Cohen]

On 4/29/06, Sebastien Blondeel <blondeel at clipper.ens.fr> wrote:
> This is probably a bug (?).
>
> I run kphotoalbum 2.2 from another machine using ssh -X. Local machine
> is using fvwm.
>
> Generally speaking, I don't like splash screens. I want to fire an
> application, get the window positioned as soon as possible, and move to
> another virtual desktop while the program is loading / computing /
> setting up... OpenOffice.org is such a painful application: it will fire
> up several windows. If I move to another virtual desktop after the
> first, I will get the second and definitive one on the bad desktop when
> the first window disappears. Sigh.
>
> With KPA things get worse. The splash screen masks any starting dialog
> boxes (eg.: "I have found a backup file .#index.xml# newer than your
> actual index.xml file. Shall I use it? yes/no" --- but sometimes it goes
> with version number of the file [do not ask again] or other things).
>
> In such a situation I have
> 1/ to guess something like that is happening
>    if the dialog box is not about the same size as the splash screen
>    it is completely hidden and I really need inspiration and intuition
>    Sometimes a border a couple pixels wide overlaps
> 2/ to fg/Ctrl-C the KPA presently running to kill it
> 3/ to *stand up*, put my slippers on, and *walk to the other room* (ouch!)
> 4/ from the KDE interface of this other computer, run KPA again. This time,
>    the dialog box appears on top of the splash screen (wtf?).
>
> So my request is: make it possible to deactivate the splash screen!
>
> Thanks, :)
>

I haven't had any trouble with the KPhotoAlbum splash screen in
particular, but the Open Office one really gets on my nerves, too.
Adding a splash screen to a program that takes 30 seconds to load is
horrible. I'm all for disable-splashscreen options in both programs
(and others).

Dotan Cohen
http://what-is-what.com