Jerome wrote:
>>
>> Recently, it was suggested that the main welcome screen for the FreeDOS
>> CD & USB installer have its welcome screen warning message changed.
>>
>> [..]
>>
>> The suggestion was to make the “please stop now” portion of the
>> text blink as Red on White in an attempt to call more attention to the
>> warning. The installer and V8Power Tools is capable of doing blinking
>> text. There are a couple translations for this page which already
>> contain some Red on White blinking text. But, there is no blinking
>> text in the English text.
>>
>> During the most recent online meeting, we discussed this topic in
>> depth. While there were a couple attendees in favor of implementing
>> Red Blinking text on this screen, I think the majority did not like
>> that idea. Personally, I am not in favor of having this screen contain
>> blinking text in the primary language.
>>
>> [..]
>>
>> As for the message portion, it may be permitted to display a portion of
>> that text as a different color (like Red on White) without blinking. We
>> may also want to reword the message to make the “danger” more
>> prominent.
Yes, I am not a fan of blinking text. Lots of blinking text is
annoying and hard to read. A single word to draw attention ("Warning")
can be okay, but only at the start of a paragraph or [better] if that
word is on its own line.
But there are other ways to address this that don't involve blinking text.
Fritz Mueller wrote:
>
> This proposal by me bases on a bug report of a user that said that the
> FreeDOS installation destroyed his Windows and he had to reinstall his
> complete Windows. I assume he/she was a Newbie, but things like this
> should not happen.
>
Yes, I added that text into the installer *years* ago because of an
*occasional* report from someone who installed FreeDOS on bare metal
and was surprised that installing an operating system would wipe his
Windows data. I received an email like that maybe once a year or so.
Note that this was back in the days when the "install" process was not
very automated. You had to run the FDISK process yourself -- so this
person ran FDISK, selected "Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive"
then "Delete Non-DOS Partition" (or "Delete Primary DOS Partition")
and ignored the warning that said:
:: WARNING! Data in the deleted Primary DOS Partition will be lost.
:: What primary partition do you want to delete...? [ ]
..and entered the partition number for their Windows data, then
changed 'N' to 'Y' at the next prompt of "Are you sure (Y/N)...? [N]"
There were already clear warnings that this person ignored, but they
complained anyway that "FreeDOS" deleted their data.
So I added a brief statement that said "you could delete your data if
you do this" as a warning.
> My proposal with a blinking red text based on the fact, that it is
> almost impossible to overlook this. But I can understand that a lot
> of other people do not like this blinking.
>
> So I would recommend to change the colour of "If this is not what
> you intend, please stop now." to red or another good visible colour
> without blinking (whole sentence). If you have a better text, why not?
>
> [..]
I think we should take this opportunity to update the text, and find
another solution that isn't blinking text. The text hasn't changed in
a long time anyway, so it's a good time to update it. :-)
> Please keep in mind, that a lawyer could check the actual behaviour
> and have stupid ideas about destroying important data on a Win machine.
>
Let's not hyperventilate about what "lawyers could do" -- there's
already a warning that you could delete your data. We don't need to
get into a panic about what "could be." :-)
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