Re: Hi all

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Sun, Sep 10, 2000 at 02:24:12AM -0600, Warren Young wrote:
> I agree that splash screens are annoying.  They're a symptom of the
> Windows 3.1 or MacOS mentality, where only one thing happens at once, so
> it doesn't matter if an app takes over the screen while it launches.

Actually an About screen in a commercial application serves
several purposes.  A Free or free application might nt need all of these.

* It gives the reader something to look at while the app starts.
  This is less important as computers are faster.
  A tip of the day is a good thing to include.

* It reminds the user of where the app came from.  The user might
  well not be the person who installed the app, so they might not
  know, and they might not care enough to use help->advert or help->about.
  But the information is useful, e.g. when they move jobs and want the
  same tools.

* It increases the company's mindshare, the amount of time people are
  thinking about the company - an ad for other products is effective here.

* it shows something plausible is happening

I am not advocating splash screens here, but trying to explain why
they are used a little.

A possible alternative is to start a program with a window background
that contains the same info, and that goes away when you first
click in the window, use a menu, etc.  pening a default document
isn't so good because people have to close it, and would be irritated
after a while, and if it only happens the first time you use the
program, you lose a lot of the effect.

Lee / Ankh

-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam holoweb net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
author, The Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley, August 2000
Co-author, The XML Specification Guide, Wiley, 1999