clipka wrote:

> Heck, how many config options do they have?!? This is frightening :-)

But the critical question is... Can you configure them all from the GUI? 
Or do you have to edit some 25-mile text file?

Oh, and are any of these things sufficiently *documented*?

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Invisible schrieb:
> clipka wrote:
> 
>> Heck, how many config options do they have?!? This is frightening :-)
> 
> But the critical question is... Can you configure them all from the GUI? 
> Or do you have to edit some 25-mile text file?

Well, so far I have looked /only/ at those that can be configured from 
the GUI... who knows what more may be available "below the surface".

> Oh, and are any of these things sufficiently *documented*?

Differs. Most settings dialogs come with a "help" button that works and 
tooltips that do help - a few don't, which is somewhat annoying, 
especially when there is a help button, but all you get from it is an 
error message.

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>> Oh, and are any of these things sufficiently *documented*?
> 
> Differs. Most settings dialogs come with a "help" button that works and 
> tooltips that do help - a few don't, which is somewhat annoying, 
> especially when there is a help button, but all you get from it is an 
> error message.

Ooo, I *love* this! Loads of Windows programs have a big help button, 
but when you click it you get absolutely nothing of use.

Sometimes you get a help page for the whole dialog box, containing such 
gems as "Use SCSI encapsulation - Turn this on if you want to use SCSI 
command encapsulation". Well, gee, now it all makes sense!

Sometimes you get an error message. (Oh THAT helps me!)

But, in the vast majority of cases, NOTHING HAPPENS. Absolutely nothing. 
Not even a "sorry, we haven't written the help file yet". Just nothing.

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Invisible schrieb:

> Ooo, I *love* this! Loads of Windows programs have a big help button, 
> but when you click it you get absolutely nothing of use.

Yes - and it seems to me it's getting more and more common.

> Sometimes you get an error message. (Oh THAT helps me!)

Another variant that gets me into ranting mode is to require internet 
access to get help, without an option to install the smash locally. 
Which especially sucks if it's a collection of some hundreds of HTML 
pages (did I mention that I prefer help formats where you can easily do 
a full-text search?)

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>> Sometimes you get an error message. (Oh THAT helps me!)
> 
> Another variant that gets me into ranting mode is to require internet 
> access to get help, without an option to install the smash locally. 
> Which especially sucks if it's a collection of some hundreds of HTML 
> pages (did I mention that I prefer help formats where you can easily do 
> a full-text search?)

M$ Office seems to favour a "help system" which actually just does a 
text search of the online forums. (WTF?)

Remember the days when people used to write *real* documentation?

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Invisible wrote:
> Sometimes you get a help page for the whole dialog box, containing such 
> gems as "Use SCSI encapsulation - Turn this on if you want to use SCSI 
> command encapsulation". Well, gee, now it all makes sense!

That means one of two things:
1) If you don't know what SCSI encapsulation is, don't touch this.
2) Nobody told the tech writer what it actually does.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
     Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable? Then he is not omnipotent.
     Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams? Then he is malevolent.

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clipka wrote:
> Which especially sucks if it's a collection of some hundreds of HTML 
> pages 

Or DirectFB, where the web site tends to go down for a week at a time.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
     Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable? Then he is not omnipotent.
     Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams? Then he is malevolent.

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Invisible wrote:
> Remember the days when people used to write *real* documentation?

Office has real documentation. They just include the online help as an 
update. If you have no internet, you still get help.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
     Then he is not omnipotent.
   Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
     Then he is malevolent.

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>> Sometimes you get a help page for the whole dialog box, containing 
>> such gems as "Use SCSI encapsulation - Turn this on if you want to use 
>> SCSI command encapsulation". Well, gee, now it all makes sense!
> 
> That means one of two things:
> 1) If you don't know what SCSI encapsulation is, don't touch this.
> 2) Nobody told the tech writer what it actually does.

Indeed.

I expect it's frequently #2 - although these are not mutually-exclusive 
alternatives. ;-)

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clipka wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez schrieb:
> 
>>> Heck, how many config options do they have?!? This is frightening :-)
>> 
>> Be glad you didn't try KDE 4.0. There were *so* many options *missing*
>> that KDE3.5 did have...
> 
> Heh, I /am/ talking about KDE4...

I don't think you're talking about *4.0*. It really is unusable :P

I use 4.3, and there are already like 3 things I want that people have 
assured me were added in 4.4 (which isn't released yet).

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