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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: QWhatsThis in KCModules and more
From:       Jost Schenck <uzsnty () uni-bonn ! de>
Date:       2000-04-27 7:46:19
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On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Richard Moore wrote:
>Jost Schenck wrote:
>> 
>> > I just wondered why it didn't popup automatically when the cursor hovered
>> > over it for, say, 2 seconds..  (checked it out last weekend)
>> 
>> Well, that would be a matter of the implementation in Qt. Right now, I'm just
>
>Not really, we could implement this if we really wanted too. I think you
>would need to give a good argument as to why it should work this way 
>however. For example, many people find tooltips too intrusive and this
>would be much worse in that respect.

Yes, me too, and I don't advocate this :)

>
>> thinking about what to put into the help-texts and what not. Especially I'd
>> like to know if it's okay with people if we rely that much on the WhatsThis
>> help instead of writing manuals.
>
>Both have their place, but I don't think WhatsThis help can be considered
>a replacement for a manual. A manual has the advanage of linear ordering,
>so that if you have a decent manual you should be able to start at page
>one, and by the end have a reasonable understanding of the whole piece
>of software. You cannot provide this through what's this help.

Yes. I would not try to document an app like konqueror just by using
WhatsThis-Help. But do you think we'd need short manuals for every control
module as well?
The reason I'm asking this is: control modules are usually just offering a
bunch of options, where it makes sense to use maybe just one or two of; they're
not used for complex processes, like creating a document etc. So a manual would
not really show a systematic introduction to the module, but just a list of
the available options, explaining each one. That's exactly what QWhatsThis does
and (in my opinion) is better suited for.
Every docbook manual demands continous work maintaining it, which makes sense
for complex applications. But does it make sense here?
-Jost.

--
Jost Schenck
jost@schenck.de

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