Re: Help Agent

[Michael Rogers <banthafodder connectfree co uk>]

Heeten wrote:
> A thing that's been floating around in my head is that
> AFAIK Gnome doesn't really have any kind of
> interactive tortorial to help users out with learning
> how to use Gnome and stuff.  I'm just wondering on
> what you guys thing of having one, would it be of any
> benifit?  If so, how would one be best designed.  What
> features should it have, stuff like that.  Just sortof
> trying to start a discussion to see if it goes any
> where

Web pages would be easy to produce, and offer some degree of
interactivity. We could have a task-oriented front page (learn how to:
write email, use the web, start a program, log out, repartition your
hard disk, optimize i386 assembly code etc) - something like CDE's
Desktop Introduction. The advantage of hypertext (over wizards) is that
you can have several paths through the same pages, so users can take
things at their own pace. And you can embed useful links: "Your computer
does not appear to be connected to the internet. Click _here_ to ask for
help on the gnome-new-users mailing list".

Themes might cause problems: the screenshots and mouse/key instructions
in the tutorial might not match the user's GTK/WM themes. But as long as
they match the default themes, I guess it's not too much of a problem:
just don't tell the user how to change the theme until the end of the
tutorial!  :-)

Can gecko display animated PNGs? Little animations showing how to pull
down a menu, fill in a dialog etc might be helpful.


Michael