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The Bride of Clippy! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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You need Clippy!
Everyone dies - but not everyone lives
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Everybody needs Clippy! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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As said tool tips are trivial. A more comprehensive guide could be your landing page or stick it under the help menu item.
I once built a user editable help system based on the form name in winforms - 3 years later and there were 2 entries in the system WOTAM.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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True, but as I mentioned, I would prefer something that looks a little better than a mere tooltip. Hence why I had a look at balloon tips instead...
Something like THIS[^] would be perfect, only for WinForms...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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* draw on the dialog? big pink arrows, with the text "click here"
* flicker the buttons color?
* Show a message dialog with "tip of the day" (there is only one tip: click the freakin'button!)
* or you could use this[^] 
* disable everything until the button has been clicked.
* ...
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Some good ideas. 
I just need something more specific. I don't want to take the time to roll anything myself. I need an out of the box component/solutions...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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V. wrote: * disable everything until the button has been clicked.
Best answer, since no one reads manuals, no one reads tooltips, no one reads READMEs.
And even if most people DID read the instructions, you'd still have more than a few who didn't.
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I can think of several strategies:
1. disable all controls but the first button when the application starts.
2. make a custom .png file with transparency containing a neat-looking arrow; display that, and animate it so it appears as-if from off-screen at first, and then move it near the button at application start, so to it "points to" the button.
I'd go with #2 depending on what the client (or I) wanted. I would, however, always provide a way to de-activate this "feature."
cheers, Bill
« I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief » Immanuel Kant
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Also good ideas.
I can't use suggestion 1, though, because of the layout of the UI. It isn't really just a button that needs to be clicked, it's an action that comes from a context menu item for one of the listviews in the UI. I just need to point it out. (I used the button example for simplification, but that might have been a bad idea)
As I mentioned to someone else: I just need something more specific. I don't want to take the time to roll anything myself. I need an out of the box component/solutions... There's gotta be something neat that I can use here at CP, I just need to find it.
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Please move this to QA, or the C# forum, where it really should have been posted, and I'll respond further.
Is it really "fair" to all members that only a few people are "allowed" to ask technical questions on the Lounge without being gutted, maimed, etc. ?
Other people on CP might well benefit from the responses/ideas/code ... but, if posted on the Lounge, the content will (so soon) be "submerged" in the spate of the mighty effluvium.
cheers, Bill
« I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief » Immanuel Kant
modified 19-Sep-14 8:27am.
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Making some massive assumptions hers (that the listview is filled with 'stuff' that the user is interested in, and that they pick something off it to access & update data, and that sometimes this gets out of date & they want to refresh it, and that when they first run it the listview is empty), then give them a button marked Refresh that does it (also saves them a mouse click).
Alternatively, a splash screen with description, instructions, a screen shot & an OK button would do a similar job to anything you found, and you'd still have to populate it with the same information.
After all this, you gotta tell us what you decide on!
Regards, Stewart
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Johnny J. wrote: when they start up the application the first time.
Does this mean when a person runs it for the first time, or when it is run on a particular machine for the first time?
I have to assume the latter, or the first step would be identification. In which case, the click event behind the button must do something - can you not check for this at load, if it's not there fire the click event automatically?
Regards, Stewart
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I could, but that's not a solution I want to take. I want the user to do it so that he/she learns how it works.
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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If the user has to click that specific button (and no other button than that one) why not take away the choice from the user and do whatever that button does directly after startup? 
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I guess I COULD do that, but it wouldn't give the user the same experience, and it wouldn't teach him/her where the functionality can be found the next time he/she needs to do it.
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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In order not to complicate things too much, I think I'll use a simple DialogBox.
Need to find one with "Don't show this again" functionality, though...
Thanks everybody for your time and input!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Johnny J. wrote: But I do need to give the users a quick clue as to what button they ought to click first when they start up the application the first time.
Unless I am missing something, don't depend on what the user 'ought' to do but simply run the code, that clicking on the button would have run, the first time the application loads.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Record your voice to play when the app runs telling them what to do. Then play some musak before they click the correct button.
Another option is to say hot/cold whenever they get near to/away from the right button.
Edit:
Why not just take them there? You could always bring up a message that will tell them where they're going after ten seconds of inactivity.
modified 19-Sep-14 12:33pm.
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This reminds me of the first WPF demo I saw which had an embedded video which rotated and the button itself throbbed.
Let's see 'em ignore that one.
And, hey why aren't we doing this in pirate speak mateys? Arrrr!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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You could launch an interactive 'guide' on startup with the option to 'Do not show this again'.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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The Royal and Ancient Golf Club has agreed to allow women members for the first time in its 260-year history.
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Well to be fair, it hasn't been cleaned and hoovered properly in all those years.
---------------------------------
Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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