Add "Show New File" to startup options

[Jon Loldrup]

When scratch opens, the main space of the application is occupied by two buttons and a bit of descriptive text. This creates a problem, as can be seen here:

http://youtu.be/ULblsnv48WM?t=3m19s

What is the problem? She immediately misunderstands the purpose of the program! She thinks it is for "something other than text editing". The problem is that the purpose of the application cannot be derived just by glancing at it. The user has to read some text (not much, but some) to know what to do. As we all know, users are lazy and as long as they can, they just want to muddle through. Had the boy in the video not helped the woman (his mother, actually), she would have closed Scratch before realising that Scratch was exactly the tool she was looking for! I would say that this is a major issue.

To deliver conveyance through just glancing, Scratch could start out by showing an empty text file. Actually, that is exactly what it does in this state:

http://youtu.be/ULblsnv48WM?t=3m49s

Why would that deliver conveyance through glancing? I guess it is because everybody has seen such a view many times when working with computers: Text fields are a very widespread idea in user interfaces, they have instant recognizeability and instant conveyance of how to use it.

I wonder if this idea of presenting some text before the actual user interface has also been adopted by other elementary OS applications, thus reducing conveyance through glancing in them too?

[Kurt Smolderen (kurt.smolderen)]

Currently Scratch offers the option to start with the welcome screen or with the last opened tabs. It would be nice to have "Show empty document" added to this list as an option.

[Jon Loldrup (loldrup)]

On Jan 31, 2013 12:00 PM, "Kurt Smolderen" <email address hidden>
wrote:
>
> Currently Scratch offers the option to start with the welcome screen or
> with the last opened tabs. It would be nice to have "Show empty
> document" added to this list as an option.

And then make it the default startup view :)

Jon

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

The problem here is that Scratch is not a word processor. Is it a text editor, and more often than not a code editor. So while it makes sense for a word processor to start with a new document, it doesn't really make a much sense for an app where most of the time you're going to be working on existing code/markup.

[Jon Loldrup (loldrup)]

What overhead would a newbie/average user/coder incur by being shown a new
empty text file upon startup?

Also, how do we solve the original conveyance issue (see further below), if
at all?

regards Jon

Den 08/03/2014 03.50 skrev "Daniel Fore" <email address hidden>:
>
> The problem here is that Scratch is not a word processor. Is it a text
> editor, and more often than not a code editor. So while it makes sense
> for a word processor to start with a new document, it doesn't really
> make a much sense for an app where most of the time you're going to be
> working on existing code/markup.
>
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - Scratch conveyance issue (useability)
> + Add "Show New File" to startup options
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1097484
>
> Title:
> Add "Show New File" to startup options
>
> Status in Scratch:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When scratch opens, the main space of the application is occupied by
> two buttons and a bit of descriptive text. This creates a problem, as
> can be seen here:
>
> http://youtu.be/ULblsnv48WM?t=3m19s
>
> What is the problem? She immediately misunderstands the purpose of the
> program! She thinks it is for "something other than text editing". The
> problem is that the purpose of the application cannot be derived just
> by glancing at it. The user has to read some text (not much, but some)
> to know what to do. As we all know, users are lazy and as long as they
> can, they just want to muddle through. Had the boy in the video not
> helped the woman (his mother, actually), she would have closed Scratch
> before realising that Scratch was exactly the tool she was looking
> for! I would say that this is a major issue.
>
> To deliver conveyance through just glancing, Scratch could start out
> by showing an empty text file. Actually, that is exactly what it does
> in this state:
>
> http://youtu.be/ULblsnv48WM?t=3m49s
>
> Why would that deliver conveyance through glancing? I guess it is
> because everybody has seen such a view many times when working with
> computers: Text fields are a very widespread idea in user interfaces,
> they have instant recognizeability and instant conveyance of how to
> use it.
>
> I wonder if this idea of presenting some text before the actual user
> interface has also been adopted by other elementary OS applications,
> thus reducing conveyance through glancing in them too?
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/scratch/+bug/1097484/+subscriptions

[Jon Loldrup (loldrup)]

Allow me to quote the elementary HIG:

"The main function of your app should be immediately apparent"

from http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines/concision

Judging from the video linked to earlier, it wasn't immediately apparent to
the woman what Scratch was for. She opened it with the expectation that it
would be a text editor, and she closed it again when she (falsely)
concluded that it *wasn't* a text editor.
Den 08/03/2014 07.36 skrev "Jon Loldrup" <email address hidden>:

> What overhead would a newbie/average user/coder incur by being shown a new
> empty text file upon startup?
>
> Also, how do we solve the original conveyance issue (see further below),
> if at all?
>
> regards Jon
>
> Den 08/03/2014 03.50 skrev "Daniel Fore" <email address hidden>:
> >
> > The problem here is that Scratch is not a word processor. Is it a text
> > editor, and more often than not a code editor. So while it makes sense
> > for a word processor to start with a new document, it doesn't really
> > make a much sense for an app where most of the time you're going to be
> > working on existing code/markup.
> >
> > ** Summary changed:
> >
> > - Scratch conveyance issue (useability)
> > + Add "Show New File" to startup options
> >
> > --
> > You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> > report.
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1097484
> >
> > Title:
> > Add "Show New File" to startup options
> >
> > Status in Scratch:
> > Confirmed
> >
> > Bug description:
> > When scratch opens, the main space of the application is occupied by
> > two buttons and a bit of descriptive text. This creates a problem, as
> > can be seen here:
> >
> > http://youtu.be/ULblsnv48WM?t=3m19s
> >
> > What is the problem? She immediately misunderstands the purpose of the
> > program! She thinks it is for "something other than text editing". The
> > problem is that the purpose of the application cannot be derived just
> > by glancing at it. The user has to read some text (not much, but some)
> > to know what to do. As we all know, users are lazy and as long as they
> > can, they just want to muddle through. Had the boy in the video not
> > helped the woman (his mother, actually), she would have closed Scratch
> > before realising that Scratch was exactly the tool she was looking
> > for! I would say that this is a major issue.
> >
> > To deliver conveyance through just glancing, Scratch could start out
> > by showing an empty text file. Actually, that is exactly what it does
> > in this state:
> >
> > http://youtu.be/ULblsnv48WM?t=3m49s
> >
> > Why would that deliver conveyance through glancing? I guess it is
> > because everybody has seen such a view many times when working with
> > computers: Text fields are a very widespread idea in user interfaces,
> > they have instant recognizeability and instant conveyance of how to
> > use it.
> >
> > I wonder if this idea of presenting some text before the actual user
> > interface has also been adopted by other elementary OS applications,
> > thus reducing conveyance through glancing in them too?
> >
> > To manage notifications about this b...

[Jeffrey D. (literallyelvis)]

I feel like this is a really simple fix, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get Scratch to build. The dependencies listed in the README file are completely off/unavailable on Freya (libgtk-3.0-dev doesn't appear to exist, while libgtk-3-dev freaks out because elementary's installed version of GTK is newer than its dependency.)

Otherwise, as far as I can tell, the two files necessary to make changes to are /src/Dialogs/PreferencesDialog.vala and /src/Scratch.vala (roughly at lines 136 and 164 respectively)