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I need a piece of advice. I would Google it if I had any clue what to Google for, but seeing that I havne't, I thought that I would check with all the wise guys here in the Lounge (gotta be wise to be here, right?):
I have a small C# application, very simple. So simple that I really couldn't be bothered writing a manual for it.
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.
I thought of showing a balloon tooltip on app startup, and I know that CP has a lot of articles about that. Problem is that most of them are in C++ and the few that aren't are old and butt-ugly.
So my question to you is: What can I do instead of a balloon tooltip to attract the users attention to a specific control in an easy to understand and good-looking way? Any suggestions?
TIA!
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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How about a good old readme.txt that no one will read?
Just how crazy is your UI anyway, that you have to do this in the first place?
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Very simple, not crazy at all, but never underestinate the stupidity of the average user... 
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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Winform or WPF? Either way a tooltip should be trivial 
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Indeed - but I want something that looks good as well, or I might as well not bother... 
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 alcohol - whatever the problem, Gin is the answer!
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Weekend's coming up fast! 
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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Just use a start button 
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Problem solved!
And then I take it away in the next version...
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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I think an animated character should pop up and offer to insist on guiding then through their use of the application.
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Perfect! That should keep everyone happy!
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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Clippy 2, the comeback !
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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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
-----
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
-----
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
-----
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
-----
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
-----
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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