Markus wrote
>One question: is the splash-screen really needed?

Adrien wrote:
>I don't see the point of a splash screen.

I completely agree that it is useless in the sense of loading screen showing 
the progress
for the standard pharo image. 

Maybe it makes more sense for the "slower" TrueType image where a progress 
bar currently shows the font updates. But this is not possible since the Squeak 
VM does
not (yet) support an updating splash progress in the native splash window 
driven by
Smalltalk code. But a splash can also be done "image side only" anyway.

But that's not the point. I suggested to provide a splash screen more 
from the branding/marketing point of view - even if it is technically useless. 
At least I want to know what others think about it.

A splash screen typically shows the Logo and some version information and 
people rember/recognize/identify the software through that. Some applications 
have an 
option to disable the splash or show it only on the first startup.

Eclipse for instance uses a slightly modified splash screen theme for each 
yearly full release
(Europa, Ganymede, ...) - nice idea since the user knows which one is started 
when the disk is full
with different versions. Sure we should drop the splash screen from the 
technical point of view - 
but it would be a nice idea to have the welcome screen of each Pharo release 
with a 
slightly modified theme to see if it is a core, developer image, ...

We dont have to clone native apps/Java IDE's - but at least we can learn a 
little bit 
about branding/marketing and how good design can attract more people.

Take another example - will you find a Smalltalk IDE with good looking Wizards 
these days? 
>From the Smalltalkers point of view (knowing about #subclass: messages) it's 
>technically useless and 
will bloat the image - but I've seen many newbies blaming Smalltalk to be that 
complicated 
the first time they just click around and search for the Class/Package wizard. 
Squeak is also not 
very supportive if one needs help - there is a help menu but no real 
help/documentation.

That does not mean we should have the splash screen or spend the whole day 
implementing 
Wizards - but at least we should discuss and think about what the first 
impression for 
others/non Smalltalkers will be and how we can help them to take first hurdles 
and enjoy 
the power of Smalltalk...

Bye
Torsten

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