We've added (and are adding) a lot of new features to 5.0. I think a Netscape QuickTips system should be implemented because of these new features and even the existing cool but unknown features from 4.x. The first time you run the browser it would pop up telling about how to best utilize one of these features. This could tell about how to change the skin and deal with the sidebar, etc. The Mail component would of course have a separate QuickTips system (even I would benefit from this) and there would be a check box for "Don't show this on startup." One would be able to skip to the next tip, and then the next, in order to learn a lot in a short period of time. The QuickTips would also be accessible from the help menu, and perhaps searchable from the help system. Please tell me what you think, what you like, don't like, or would make better.

Neat idea. Are you volunteering to implement this? ;) (I don't believe our understaffed Help folks have the ability to add any more work to their already over-stuffed plates.)

Hmm. "All successful application suites expand until a startup tips screen is implemented" ? It is definitely time with Mozilla. The best way I can see to get a rough list started for this would be to post a message much like this RFE to the n.p.m.general and n.p.m.documentation newsgroups (followups to the latter) and hope for some responses - but to supplement the hope, get MozillaZine to talk it up. Go for it, mobius! This does look like serious work to finish, but aside from the startup tips dialog, these same tips would be perfect fodder for media that want a sidebar for their Navigator 5 launch stories.

I agree that Mozilla could gain a lot from this feature. We can easily employ Mozilla resources for writing the content (tips). We would need a responsible person who overlooks it and decides the order. But first, we need the infrastructure, speak "code". Who is going to implement this? verah, do you have time for this? Removing "Netscape" from SUMMARY.

hm, aren't QuickTips these yellow boxes, which appear some time after a mouseover? Setting SUMMARY to "Tip of the day".

Sorry, I don't have time currently, though I could supply a rough list of new features, tips, etc. Someone else would have to implement it. I do wish I had time!

Updating QA Contact to elig...welcome back!

I'd suggest that when this does get done, the first priority should be tips on how to do things that can no longer be done the 4xp way. An example: A single click in the location (URL) bar no longer selects the entire URL (see bug 37587). That was 4xp, but won't be replicated. For those who primarily use the mouse and wouldn't think of tabbing to the location bar to select its contents, it would be useful to mention in a tip that double-clicking will select the entire URL.

cc'ing rosilene and rleggins to see if they are interested in making this happen.

qa assigning open/resolved help bugs to paw

spam: mass-moving currently open help bugs to Terri, who now does qa on 'em. :)

Does anyone have any evidence that Tips of the Day have ever caused a net speed increase in users' use of any product, rather than causing a net slowdown where the time required to read and dismiss the dialog on startup is greater than the time saved by the knowledge it imparts? If our interface has behaviors which can only be explained by a Tip of the Day feature (rather than implied by the interface itself), for something as basic as a Web browser or mail program, I think we should attack the root UI problems rather than try to explain them away with Tips of the Day.

Matthew, the user has the chance to easily disable this feature, and I often do so. But *if* I took the chance to read a few tips (in pther apps), they often turned out to be very useful and helpful. I agree that there are other methods to achive the same (better UI, context-sensitive help, manual), but this is an additional help for the user. BTW: Don't assume we are in a perfect world. Even if it might be possible to avoid a tip by improving the UI, it might be to costy at this time, and giving a tip is better than not doing so.

If you are completely convince, that this feature is unecessary in all cases, please proof it (listing all possible cases where it might help, and showing that all of them are better achieved via other methods; don't forget to consider time).

Ben, I believe that is known as `putting the shoe on the other foot'. For an RFE, surely the onus is on its supporters to present a convincing argument that it would be a *net* usability win, not on its detractors to prove that in `all possible cases' (your words) it would be a usability loss. I could give you a list of all the bits of stupid UI in Mozilla which would require Tips of the Day to explain; but such a list would take several weeks to compile, and I'd rather report them as separate bugs instead.

> putting the shoe on the other foot Matthew, as I said, I know from my own experience that this feature was very helpful. It is a nice way to - welcome new users and introduce them to the app - constantly improve the productivity of the user, even for advanced users. (Late tips could even point to hidden prefs.) Also, most large apps employ this feature, and Mozilla surely is a large app. So, IMO, it is your job to argue, if you disagree with the common practice. > bits of stupid UI in Mozilla Surely compiling such a list is faster than fixing all those "bugs". Given that we don't have the time to fix all UI problems, not even for Moz1.0, we should give the user hints instead of leaving him alone with the problems.

> *net* usability win Also, users are not that dumb. They will disable the feature, when they don't think, it is still rewarding.

Regarding Sean's 6/21 comment, the information about double-clicking to select a URL in N6 (vs. single-clicking as was done in Communicator 4.x) was added to the Upgrading to Netscape 6 document posted at http://home.netscape.com/browsers/ upgrade.html.

*** Bug 103608 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Whatever Peter says that bug was a dup of this one. Anyway I'll resolve them the other way round if it makes people happy. How can his be a tracking bug if there's no dependencies, more of a case of someone at Netscape filing a bug for a feature they want in and not checking for duplicates (although most of us are guilty of that sometimes) *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 103608 ***

I absolutely hate old bugs being duped against new ones. Reopening and making the new one block this one.

Once I finish up my current work with Help, I might think about doing this. It might be a nice way to learn some simple XUL.

I think these should be duplicates, not dependencies.

*** Bug 96844 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I've created an extension for Mozilla Firebird that adds a "Tip of the Day" bar to the bottom of the content area. CTRL+F1 shows/hides it, and preferences control what tip to show on startup. You can install it <a href="http://thekleins.freeservers.com/ext/tipbar.xpi">here</a>

See Bugzilla Bug 298026

Since it is also in Firefox, shouldn't this be moved to core?

worcester12345@yahoo.com: no, because the individual apps may choose to do it differently, or not at all.

There is a bugzilla for these Mozilla "projects", but I am not seeing the tipzilla one. Anyone know how to report this?

Created Bugzilla Bug 308226 Add Tip of the Day for Firefox before 1.5 for Firefox.

(In reply to comment #29) > Created Bugzilla Bug 308226 Add Tip of the Day for Firefox before 1.5 for > Firefox. > The Firefox version of this bug was WONTFIX 'd. I imagine this one will be also then.

KompoZer has a Tip of the day feature, FWIW. It could be easily ported to SeaMonkey if there is interest in fixing this.

(In reply to comment #31) > KompoZer has a Tip of the day feature, FWIW. It could be easily ported to > SeaMonkey if there is interest in fixing this. Please do!

(In reply to comment #32) > (In reply to comment #31) > > KompoZer has a Tip of the day feature, FWIW. It could be easily ported to > > SeaMonkey if there is interest in fixing this. > > Please do! :-) Not that I'm able to do it myself, it was just a pointer in case someone with enough XUL knowledge can do it. FWIW, it seems the TOTD code in KompoZer is fairly simple: http://kompozer.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/kompozer/trunk/mozilla/composer/extensions/tipoftheday/ I guess an extension could be written with that code to test it in SeaMonkey trunk.