The question for me is who are we aiming the Out-of-the-box-experience at? If it is for existing users, then I agree that a welcome message is not necessary or desirable. However IMO we should be aiming at new users and ensuring that their early J experience is positive and constructive with the minimum amount of frustration. Existing users will be in a much better position to reconfigure their startup environment as required than new users. Existing users will need to do some one-off configuration after installation (which they probably do anyway).
For me the (J front end) JFE that would most benefit from a welcome message is the jconsole. Currently when a new user starts the jconsole there is no information to say that they are in fact now in a j console session, or how to exit it, or where they might get some basic help. The GUI JFEs are not so bad because there is a menu bar users can click on to find stuff out and exit. Nevertheless I think it would be worthwhile to make this a standard mechanism that works the same way across JFEs. On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 1:28 PM, chris burke <[email protected]> wrote: > Do we really need a startup message? My first reaction would be to turn it > off. > > Perhaps a better facility would be a verb that would be called after > gtkide was started. This could be defined in gtkide.cfg (default > empty), and could do anything, including output a welcome message. For > example, this would be suitable for a classroom configuration. > > On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 8:05 AM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >> Basically sounds ok. >> >> I was assuming user would create Welcome in _z_ (or _base_?) not _j_ , >> but I don't know if that's better, apart from a gut-feel that system >> classes ought to remain untouched. >> >> Must Welcome be a noun, or can it be a verb instead? Might both be >> allowed (whence different names would be needed?) >> >> Don't fully grasp the need for ShowWelcome in base.cfg. The welcome >> msg can be disabled altogether by having startup.ijs set it to empty. >> What's gained from having the user set/check a cfg as well as >> startup.ijs -- which is effectively a user profile too? Are we >> catering here for an administrator who needs the power to deny >> facilities to the user? AFAICS the only reason for this facility is >> because startup.ijs gets executed "too early" in j701 and the >> architecture won't allow it to be executed any later. >> >> >> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Ric Sherlock <[email protected]> wrote: >>> I think startup.ijs could still do the job. How does this sound? >>> >>> * User creates custom Welcome_j_ in their startup.ijs. >>> * JFE creates Welcome_j_ (if it doesn't already exist) with its >>> default message) >>> * Welcome_j_ is "smoutput"ed to session if ShowWelcome (in base.cfg) >>> is set to 1. >>> >>> To get this to work across JFEs there needs to be some agreement that >>> it is desirable (or at least no disagreement that it is undesirable). >>> >>> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 5:49 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> Got it to work by adding 2 lines to the bottom of verb: main in: >>>> ~addons/ide/gtk/gtk.ijs >>>> >>>> main=: 3 : 0 >>>> main_init'' >>>> if. r=. conf_init'' do. main_quit r return. end. >>>> if. r=. conn_init'' do. main_quit r return. end. >>>> proj_init'' >>>> menu_init'' >>>> sview_init'' >>>> main_open'' >>>> main_run'' >>>> if. 3= 4!:0 <'welcome' do. welcome'' end. >>>> if. 0= 4!:0 <'WELCOME' do. smoutput WELCOME end. >>>> 0 >>>> ) >>>> >>>> Clearly this fix will only last until the next Pacman download. >>>> >>>> Unfortunately startup.ijs can't patch the target verb itself, because >>>> locale 'jgtkide' isn't yet loaded. The only locales present when >>>> startup.ijs is entered are: >>>> base ctag j jcompare jijs jregex jtask z >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:07 AM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> That's kinda what I guessed. Viz by modifying: main_init_jgtkide_ >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:02 AM, bill lam <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> gtkide will run jfe 1 during booting and only after that will smoutput >>>>>> redirect to Term. So that you need to put motd after that jfe. >>>>>> >>>>>> Пнд, 14 Фев 2011, Ian Clark писал(а): >>>>>>> smoutput in startup.ijs causes a message to appear in jconsole, >>>>>>> whether running JCON, JHS or JGTK. >>>>>>> (...which weakly satisfies your original request). >>>>>>> But I've only verified this for the Mac. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> bin/jgtk.command contains the text: >>>>>>> #!/bin/sh >>>>>>> "`dirname "$0"`/jconsole" gtkide >>>>>>> >>>>>>> so my guess is that by the time gtkide gets run, startup.ijs has >>>>>>> already been loaded and has had time to perform its definitions and >>>>>>> overrides. >>>>>>> So it would be up to the "gtkide" function (main_jgtkide_ ??) to look >>>>>>> for a welcome noun or verb. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 3:23 AM, Ric Sherlock <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>> > Yes I was thinking along similar lines. >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > Each of the JFEs could set an appropriate message in Welcome_j_. >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > The Welcome_j_ non could be overwritten by the user's various >>>>>>> > startup.ijs scripts (unless this gets run before the JFE scripts - I >>>>>>> > need to check) >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > Depending on the setting of ShowWelcome in ~config/base.cfg the >>>>>>> > Welcome_j_ noun gets displayed in the session (jconsole/Term/jijx >>>>>>> > window). >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:05 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> >>>>>>> > wrote: >>>>>>> >> How about smoutputting the noun WELCOME if it is present, and not >>>>>>> >> otherwise? >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> >> Maybe also executing: welcome'' >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> >> The user could define or override either of these words in >>>>>>> >> startup.ijs >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> >> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 2:21 AM, Ric Sherlock <[email protected]> >>>>>>> >> wrote: >>>>>>> >>> I think it would be good to have a default "Welcome message" >>>>>>> >>> (especially for jconsole). >>>>>>> >>> >>>>>>> >>> It just needs to be something simple to let the user know they are >>>>>>> >>> in >>>>>>> >>> a Jconsole session and how to exit. IME there is nothing worse than >>>>>>> >>> knowing you are in some application, but not knowing what it is or >>>>>>> >>> how >>>>>>> >>> to get out of it! >>>>>>> >>> >>>>>>> >>> Obviously the Welcome message would be able to be turned off, for >>>>>>> >>> example using an option in ~config/base.cfg ( ShowWelcome=: 0 ) >>>>>>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>>> >>> For information about J forums see >>>>>>> >>> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>>> >>> >>>>>>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>>> >> For information about J forums see >>>>>>> >> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>>> >> >>>>>>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>>> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> regards, >>>>>> ==================================================== >>>>>> GPG key 1024D/4434BAB3 2008-08-24 >>>>>> gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 4434BAB3 >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>>> >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
