Please add "Welcome to Audacity!" screen to Help menu

[Edgar]

... if someone does look in About Audacity, probably they should see a link to Wiki rather than suggesting they come straight to Forum.

Unless it were thought to be offensive to our sponsors at SourceForge...label them:
SourceForge Audacity homepage: http://audacityteam.org/
Wiki Audacity homepage: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Not a bad idea in itseIf but has several reasons against it:

* lack of space there
* confusion over the difference between the two sites:
- is Wiki a sponsor or domain host like Sourceforge?
- Doesn't explain the purpose of the Wiki

Gale

I am looking at the Help/About Audacity... window right now. In answer to your "lack of space", I have a few thoughts.
*The window is of a fixed size -- not sizable by the user (why not)
*the window has a vertical scrollbar -- already there is more information than
that which is possible to display without scrolling
*just in the information displayed before scrolling, there are 2 unnecessary
carriage returns:

Code: Select all

 requests to our Feedback address. For help using Audacity, please visit our 
Forum.
                                    [HERE]
                                   Credits

      Audacity 1.3.10-alpha-Oct 10 2009 Development Team
                                 [AND HERE] 
                            James Crook
                          Vaughan Johnson 

(pardon the ugly formatting there) Please note that the line Audacity... Development Team is very long, in bold and centered, the developer's names are much shorter, not in bold and centered -- this is enough visual distinction between the heading and the items. If this edit is made,
it should be made throughout.

As for "is Wiki a sponsor or domain host like Sourceforge?", make the 2nd line ("A Free Digital Audio Editor) bold; identify the SourceForge link -- maybe something like:
Audacity's homepage at SourceForge: http://...
Audacity's Wiki page: http://...

As for "Doesn't explain the purpose of the Wiki", if it were thought necessary, a sentence might be added between the "... grateful to SourceForge..." and "Audacity is available..." sentences. My understanding is that the mere fact that it is a Wiki page creates an underlying understanding of its purpose -- the "purpose" of any Wiki page is to be something like a cross between a dictionary, encyclopedia and public message board.

[Gale Andrews]

Unless it were thought to be offensive to our sponsors at SourceForge...label them:
SourceForge Audacity homepage: http://audacityteam.org/
Wiki Audacity homepage: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Not a bad idea in itseIf but has several reasons against it:

* lack of space there
* confusion over the difference between the two sites:
- is Wiki a sponsor or domain host like Sourceforge?
- Doesn't explain the purpose of the Wiki

I am looking at the Help/About Audacity... window right now. In answer to your "lack of space", I have a few thoughts.
*The window is of a fixed size -- not sizable by the user (why not)

You'll have to ask on -devel if you want a definitive answer, or play with the code yourself, but HTML windows like this in Audacity have always had limited functionality. Your help in overcoming those restrictions could be useful.

*the window has a vertical scrollbar -- already there is more information than that which is possible to display without scrolling

Obviously, at least a couple of names on the Credits must be viewable without scrolling down.

*just in the information displayed before scrolling, there are 2 unnecessary carriage returns:

requests to our Feedback address. For help using Audacity, please visit our
Forum.
[HERE]
Credits

Shouldn't #endif be on its own line?

Audacity 1.3.10-alpha-Oct 10 2009 Development Team
[AND HERE]
James Crook
Vaughan Johnson

I could try it without the space but I'm not convinced it would look better given the use of space elsewhere.

Please note that the line Audacity... Development Team is very long, in bold and centered, the developer's names are much shorter, not in bold and centered -- this is enough visual distinction between the heading and the items.

I think that was Vaughan's design decision. I can try it your way.

As for "is Wiki a sponsor or domain host like Sourceforge?", make the 2nd line ("A Free Digital Audio Editor) bold; identify the SourceForge link -- maybe something like:
Audacity's homepage at SourceForge: http://...
Audacity's Wiki page: http://...

As for "Doesn't explain the purpose of the Wiki", if it were thought necessary, a sentence might be added between the "... grateful to SourceForge..." and "Audacity is available..." sentences. My understanding is that the mere fact that it is a Wiki page creates an underlying understanding of its purpose -- the "purpose" of any Wiki page is to be something like a cross between a dictionary, encyclopedia and public message board.

It is normal to have one main site or home page and treat it as such.

I believe you'll find the vast majority of users new to Audacity have little or no understanding of what a Wiki is.



Gale

[Edgar]

*just in the information displayed before scrolling, there are 2 unnecessary carriage returns:

requests to our Feedback address. For help using Audacity, please visit our
Forum.
[HERE]
Credits

Shouldn't #endif be on its own line?

Given the size of the window, the word "Forum" is orphaned -- by itself on single line. The word "Credits" is centered -- it looks like there are two blank lines between "...For help using..." and "Credits".

Audacity 1.3.10-alpha-Oct 10 2009 Development Team
[AND HERE]
James Crook
Vaughan Johnson

I could try it without the space but I'm not convinced it would look better given the use of space elsewhere.

Please note that the line Audacity... Development Team is very long, in bold and centered, the developer's names are much shorter, not in bold and centered -- this is enough visual distinction between the heading and the items.

I think that was Vaughan's design decision. I can try it your way.

Can we get Vaughan to jump in and give us the thoughts on his design decision? Did you try it or would you like me to hack up some code and post a picture?

*The window is of a fixed size -- not sizable by the user (why not)

You'll have to ask on -devel if you want a definitive answer, or play with the code yourself, but HTML windows like this in Audacity have always had limited functionality. Your help in overcoming those restrictions could be useful.

I will look at the code. Thank you for assigning me these little tasks -- I'm not quite up to tackling P1 bugs yet.

[Gale Andrews]

Please note that the line Audacity... Development Team is very long, in bold and centered, the developer's names are much shorter, not in bold and centered -- this is enough visual distinction between the heading and the items.

I think that was Vaughan's design decision. I can try it your way.

Can we get Vaughan to jump in and give us the thoughts on his design decision? Did you try it or would you like me to hack up some code and post a picture?

I've got to add the names of the new Team members anyway, so I can add the missing link to the Wiki to even out the last sentence and try it with less spaces. Assuming you are subscribing to our cvs list, you will be notified when I commit that. I think more important is adding a route from Manual to Wiki and Forum, as discussed in this thread.

Thank you for assigning me these little tasks -- I'm not quite up to tackling P1 bugs yet.

P1s and P2s are not necessarily complex, they just have a higher priority.


Gale

[Edgar]

I've got to add the names of the new Team members anyway, so I can add the missing link to the Wiki to even out the last sentence and try it with less spaces. Assuming you are subscribing to our cvs list, you will be notified when I commit that. I think more important is adding a route from Manual to Wiki and Forum, as discussed in this thread.

Thank you for assigning me these little tasks -- I'm not quite up to tackling P1 bugs yet.

P1s and P2s are not necessarily complex, they just have a higher priority.

Gale

"P5 Only just important enough to be fixed. It could be done in "spare time", or by someone learning the code. "

This sounds like me! I have never worked on a cross-platform project before. The Audacity code is comprehensible (with some study) but the wxWidgets code is very complex and slows me down considerably.

I have been grabbing a new CVS head every day but I just subscribed to the list you pointed out. I think adding the URLs to the manual slightly outweighs adding them to the "Welcome...".