Re: Improved welcome screen

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 27.04.2020 22:07, Stefan Kangas wrote:
> Dmitry Gutov <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > I like this direction quite a bit. Not crazy about the part after the
> > dashed line, though, but it's less clear what we can replace it with.
>
> Thank you, this is good feedback.  For this first draft, I tried to
> include all information that was there before.  But I'm personally
> happy to incorporate further changes along the lines you suggest.
>
> As for the version information, we could just mention the major and
> minor version in the first sentence:  "This is GNU Emacs version
> 28.0.50, [...]"

I don't have a particular preference. This string could be useful (I 
don't know). But the way it's displayed, and its length, leave something 
to be desired.

> Or we could decide that the version information is not really needed
> at all for the purposes of this screen.  I don't have a very strong
> opinion here except that I don't think it's ideal to advertise details
> like the cairo version at the very top of the screen (as before).

Indeed, maybe not.

> > The "NO WARRANTY" can probably just live in the Help menu. Or move to
> > the middle. Maybe by replacing the "Ordering Manuals" item which could
> > obtain more prominence in "(emacs) Top". Or by having a fourth item
> > there. Maybe we can have 4 items in each column.
>
> I thought there was some kind of legal reason that "NO WARRANTY" is on
> that screen?  If it's not, we might as well move it out of the way, I
> agree.

Maybe Richard has an opinion on this, but (though IANAL) I don't think 
so, considering most software (libre or not) don't make this much of an 
effort to tell the user about the lack of warranty.

> The "Ordering Manuals" could indeed get more prominence in "(emacs)
> Top" instead.
>
> We could have four items in each column, if necessary.  Somehow humans
> like it when there are only three things though - it's a general
> principle in graphical design.  It "feels" better to most people for
> some unknown reason.  Content obviously trumps that, but I propose we
> also keep that (secondary) aspect in mind.

If the "no warranty" thing is required there after all, we could do the 
four-row thing as the first improved version, get it installed, and then 
discuss further tweaks.

Because I'm guessing hiding the "Ordering Manuals" farther from sight 
can be seen as unfortunate (however much income it results in, IDK).

> > Speaking of the Guided Tour, EWW is nifty and all, but it renders that
> > page worse than any normal browser.
>
> Indeed.  I filed a feature request for a new max width option:
> https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=40909

Thanks.

> The images are also rendered to be very small, so maybe it would be
> good to file a feature request for that.

Personally, I'd prefer if it just used the web browser installed in the 
system. But I'll take any improvement over the current state.