Welcome screen

[Axeljaeger-users]

It would be nice for beginners to have a welcome screen
with some but big buttons:

Start a new file
Open a file
Do a tutorial
Quit the programm
And a checkbox:
[x] Show welcomescreen

This sounds a bit childish but I think most beginners
do not go to the help menue and select one of the realy
great tutorials.

[Kees Cook (kees)]

Good idea! Do you know if there is a "common" way that GTK
applications do this? (Or at least a common dialog?) It
shouldn't be too hard to implement.

[Axeljaeger-users (axeljaeger-users)]

Sorry but I cannot help you because I'm mostly a Qt
programmer and never used Gtk seriously. But I realy like
Inkscape and would be happy I could help in other ways.

[Horkana-users (horkana-users)]

It might be possible to use a "Tip of the Day" feature [1]
for this purpose and the first tip shown could include some
of the information you suggest.

[1] the GIMP has one but I'd be surprised if there was not a
standard generic reusable GTK or Gnome widget for it at this
stage.

[Axeljaeger-users (axeljaeger-users)]

I don't think a "Tip of the Day" would be that useable. I
rather think about something like the welcomescreen shipped
with the new Photoshop, KOffice or so. Important is to
continue the recent document, take a lesson and select one
of some templates.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Probably this feature should wait until after we have active widgets
in-canvas, so that we can do the checkbox. (Perhaps once Javascript is
implemented?)

After that, we could have Inkscape on startup display this 'help screen'
SVG
by default, until the user clicks the checkbox to stop displaying it.

I agree that Tip of the Day is probably not desireable. I much prefer the

tutorial approach we have, since it gives the info in "complete thoughts".

We just need a way to direct users to the tutorials. In a number of cases

post-0.40 I've run into user questions that were easily answered by, "The
tutorials are in the Help menu." So a way to point new users thataway
immediately would be a big help.

[Guillermo Espertino (Gez) (gespertino-gmail)]

Although some advanced users will say it's like dumbing down the program, It's not a bad idea at all, as long as there is a way to turning it off.
There is another report concerning the long startup time of inkscape and suggesting a Splash screen. Maybe a multi-purpose splash screen could be add this functionality (i.e. When you launch the application a splash screen appears and when the application is fully loaded the content of the splash turns into a welcome window with common tasks).

[Victor Westmann (victor.westmann)]

I don`t think tip of the day is a good idea IMO. hehe.
BUT we could totally copy the welcome screen of blender (http://wiki.blender.org/uploads/b/b2/Manual-Introduction-Welcome-Screen-2-69.png) resources, tutorials, inkscape art and version info and recent files.

Also an aditional screen could be nice for the user to setup canvas size and orientation. :)

[ScislaC (scislac)]

Tip of the day might not be bad though Victor. I would LOVE to see that in Blender, I would probably use it more if it had one honestly.

Did you know that the Pencil Tool has a "sketch" mode that allows you to refine a stroke? Hold Alt (and don't let go until you're happy) and make a stroke with the pencil tool, then try to make the same stroke again, it will average them... you can keep holding alt and trying to do the same thing repeatedly and altering as you desire to refine it, when happy, release Alt. I would not phrase a tip like that, but it was a serious Q... did you know Inkscape's Pencil Tool did that? We have SO much under the hood functionality that most of us can't keep track of all the nifty things sprinkled all over the place.

Weird to see random activity on this report. :)

[Victor Westmann (victor.westmann)]

True. I did not know that. Maybe you`re right. Maybe! hehe. :) Cheers.

[Victor Westmann (victor.westmann)]

Hey. I'm very sorry about this... I believe I opened a duplicate of this feature request in the Blueprint session: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/welcome-screen
You guys can close it if it's not necessary anymore. :)

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

@Victor - No problem, you can have a report (or more) and a blueprint, as long as they are correctly linked (and now it is).

[grey tomorrow (gtomorrow)]

Closing because INVALID: duplicate issue on GitLab.

Please see https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/1424

If you feel this issue has been injustly closed, please feel free to open a new issue at http://inkscape.org/report . Thank you.

Closed by: https://gitlab.com/greytomorrow