[Bf-committers] "Blender, an appraisal from a first time user"

[gandalf3]

On 01/03/2016 03:38 AM, Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> 1) Meaningless tooltips

It'd be nice to have a more obvious way for users to suggest tooltips.
(is anyone actually using the old page on the wiki 
<http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tooltips>?)

It'd be even cooler if there was a link in the tooltips themselves to 
edit (or at least suggest an edit) for that tooltip (wikipedia style). 
Many times I've spotted less-than-descriptive tooltips, but I either 
forgot about it or was too lazy to go and edit the wiki in the vague 
hope that one day a developer might chance upon my entry.

Not sure how you'd actually click on such a link (being in a tooltip 
which depends on mouse position and all), perhaps it could be put in the 
right click menu or something.

Since (afaik) one of the goals of the manual is to describe each setting 
in more detail than the tooltip, perhaps this tooltip editing system 
could be integrated with the manual in some way (full manual entry and 
abbreviated tooltip could be stored and edited side-by-side).

Perhaps the reverse would be possible, an option in blender to show 
extended tooltips which display the full manual entry. Hopefully such an 
option would vastly reduce time needed to look things up in the manual, 
particularity for new users.

On 01/03/2016 03:38 AM, Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Here is a friendly mail from a Linux user I had. He failed using Blender for a simple video task.
> http://download.blender.org/institute/firsttime.pdf
>
> I'm happy that KDEnlive worked for him, and I explained to him that Blender is an advanced 3D creation suite which you have to invest time in to understand it well.
>
> Nevertheless, three lessons we can learn from this:
>
> 1) Meaningless tooltips
>
> The "System info" menu has as tooltip "Generate system info". That's insufficient. It leaves very relevant information to the notifier button that's very easy too miss.
>
> 2) Meaningless error message
>
> "Report Error. File format is not supported in...".
>
> What is that supposed to mean? Errors can easily give more details, especially mentioning the function or operator that throws the error and/or about the context or editor it is in.
>
> 3) Blender support section: Tutorials.
>
> http://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/
>
> There is no beginner tutorial on blender.org for newbies how to quickly get a video edited.
> Anyone knows one? Then I'll add it there.
>
> -Ton-
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
> Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute
> Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands
>
>
>
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