- This topic has 87 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated Dec 27-7:17 am by BobC.
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PPC
Hi all:
Rocky just proved my point about too much information: almost no one reads it- that’s why my script saves explanations for the tooltips, and I minimized as much as possible the number of icons available- still I noticed that the latest version of my script matchs almost every requeriment that , I believe bob said the welcome screen should have, except the “do not show again” tick box…About the portuguese translation for “applications” – We used “Programas” here in Portugal. During the recent years, due to large scale use of android phones, we bagan using the word “app” for short, but the full word as used in Portugal is “aplicações” (in Brazil they use “aplicativos”). Translations in both contries vary from slightly to an absurd extreme (for example computer mouse is “rato”(mouse) in Portugal and is unstranslated in Brazil, they say “mouse”… But “User” is translated as “utilizador” in Portugal and “usuário” in Brazil- both expressions mean about the same thing akin to expressions like “pants” or “thousers” 🙂 )
Question:
Do you guys think that I should post my latest revamped script, translated to english here? I changed a few things, added app-select, the web forum link, and adjusted a couple of things. Most of the tooltip explanations can be cut- they serve to tell portuguese speaking users how to navigate any configuration menus that sadly, are not localized…P.
Brian Masinick
Yes, post the script. That way any interested parties can try it out and give their feedback and continue to use it.
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Brian MasinickAnonymous
It seems to me that when I boot the flashdrive it remembers my machine and maybe reconnects my wifi. If true, then maybe it could also remember if the welcom screen bypass had been clicked.
. . .
PS: I still need a way to add that checkbox to avoid seeing the Quick setup screen again.
As far as the non persistent annoyance. It may need to have a boot option.
I’ve pasted a utility for setting flags “so that when I boot the flashdrive it remembers“.
https://pastebin.com/uHxnxQMr
Its “flag setting” mechanism can be put to additional uses beyond just the welcome script. I’ll suggest that it would be provided by the desktop-session-antix package, and that the welcome script would read/write a new, mnemonic, “welcomeflag=” line (leaving “STARTUP_DIALOG=” available for potential future use)excerpt, inline comments-n-explanation:
# This script, chmod 4755 (aka setuid)
# would reside at /usr/local/bin/set-liveflags.sh
# and a line stating (noquotes)
# “%users ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/set-liveflags.sh”
# would be placed into /etc/sudoers.d/antixers
#
# This script is intended to be reusable.
# Invoke this script (((from the welcome script))) via the command:
# sudo /usr/local/bin/set-liveflags.sh –welcome# TODO: a separate jigsaw puzzle piece
# ===== /usr/local/bin/desktop-session would (conditionally, if livesession)
# scandir the directory /live/boot-dev/antiX/state/user/$USER
# to retrieve the flags set by this script, and would append lines
# (e.g “welcomeflag=1”) to /etc/live/config/initrd.out
# which would be consulted by non-root user scripts (e.g. welcome script)
Xecure
We could even copy the script and add it as a function to the welcome screen.
Thanks skidoo.antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.Here is my version of the Welcome Screen (I had no time to translate the tooltips to english- they are not essential).
The icons should appear now for every user (in antiX 19.X at least)Using Skidoo’s suggestion, with a bit of work, we can add the “Do not show this at start up” check box on any welcome screen…
P.
BobC
Thanks skidoo and Dave for providing magic to save the checkbox value without persistence.
PPC, your tooltips idea is excellent. I wanted to use the same labels as the menus and control centre so people would recognize the titles, but the tooltips would allow a clearer explanation for each in any language once translated. In my mind, I just wanted to autodetect screen and network, and give them a short list, in sequence, of things that a first time antiX user might need to do, that they might have a hard time figuring out on their own, and without asking them to read manuals or screens of stuff.
But maybe it’s better to provide a more all encompassing list? Yours is more oriented to being used a lot rather than just the first day. That isn’t bad, it is better for it’s purpose from that respect as noticed by others obviously. I think yours should be made a bit prettier, and availailable all the time, and not have a turn me off feature.
I withdraw mine from the running and will help with whatever I can. Xecure seems to have warmed to my first time short list in sequence mentality, and I think everyone sees the value in the autodetect features, so my solution provides no additional value since I also like the direction Xecure went on looks with logo and big buttons.
I admit to not understanding very much of skidoo’s magic code, but am curious to learn how it works.
Brian may be right that both could have a place.
PS: In deferenct to Moddit’s request, I wonder on the long list if we could organize the items that are available on the control centre together, so even if people don’t go to the control centre for those, at least they know whats kinds of things are there and where to find them. Also, the tooltips for those could say what control centre tab they are located on.
- This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by BobC.
Brian Masinick
Thanks skidoo and Dave for providing magic to save the checkbox value without persistence.
PPC, your tooltips idea is excellent. I wanted to use the same labels as the menus and control centre so people would recognize the titles, but the tooltips would allow a clearer explanation for each in any language once translated. In my mind, I just wanted to autodetect screen and network, and give them a short list, in sequence, of things that a first time antiX user might need to do, that they might have a hard time figuring out on their own, and without asking them to read manuals or screens of stuff.
But maybe it’s better to provide a more all encompassing list? Yours is more oriented to being used a lot rather than just the first day. That isn’t bad, it is better for it’s purpose from that respect as noticed by others obviously. I think yours should be made a bit prettier, and availailable all the time, and not have a turn me off feature.
I withdraw mine from the running and will help with whatever I can. Xecure seems to have warmed to my first time short list in sequence mentality, and I think everyone sees the value in the autodetect features, so my solution provides no additional value since I also like the direction Xecure went on looks with logo and big buttons.
I admit to not understanding very much of skidoo’s magic code, but am curious to learn how it works.
Brian may be right that both could have a place.
PS: In deference to Moddit’s request, I wonder on the long list if we could organize the items that are available on the control centre together, so even if people don’t go to the control centre for those, at least they know whats kinds of things are there and where to find them. Also, the tooltips for those could say what control centre tab they are located on.
Yes indeed! I nominate the automatic approach (grafting in whatever additional logic is necessary to make the entire approach truly “automatic”, and then I also recommend the inclusion (or at least availability SOMEWHERE) of the advanced techniques, (possibly an “intelligent collection” of the best of everyone’s ideas) into a comprehensive tool that has every tweak and assistance capability we have at our disposal. I do think that even with the “comprehensive tool” we need a careful balance between simplicity and completeness; enough words to explain the tools, but any long descriptions should be separated into a technical document or a specification so that the tool itself does not become too cumbersome to look at or use. These are my best suggestions. I’m no longer “nimble” at actually developing or coding with the latest software, but I have over four decades of total architecture, design, development, coding, testing, and interacting with customers. My most recent work, just prior to retirement, was testing large enterprise software in financial applications in the business finance and auto industries. These comments and my opinions on this are based on decades of work with both engineers and business people – each of who have vastly different experience levels. The suggestions would be the kind of things that would work for beginners and financial analysts (the automatic approach), which frees people from the particulars and allows them to simply use the tool, and the advanced approach, which provides every option for the scientist, engineer, or anyone for which the automatic approach is not sufficient.
These multiple techniques ought to serve a much larger user base with only a modest overhead to our overall system.
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Brian Masinick@BobC – my “welcome screen” is not “in the running” – I’m not expect to work much more on it, unless anticapitalista asks me to (to make it officially part of antiX).
I see it as a mix of a welcome screen (it helps users to get to their files, search for apps, configure a wi-fi network – probably the most basic stuff a newbie in any operating system need to know how to do), and then it’s a “maggled” Control Centre, with just the most basic options and not much more…I dabbled with the idea of putting my small “configure wi-fi” script on the start of this script- but it needs the “error connection” features I talked before, namely, not launching connman if no wi-fi network is present/no network card detected).
Automatic wi-fi network detection AND (for users with newer computers) automatic HI-DPI configuration would make antiX more usable out of the box, on the majority of possible cases…
If antiX also came with a “magnifying glass” icon for app-select, a “folder” icon for the default file manager, firefox’s icon, “package installer” and “antiX updater” icons on the toolbar by default, there probably won’t even be much demand for a simple “welcome screen” like mine, not for English speaking users… Basically, the only added value my screen would have would be helping newbies add icons to the toolbar/desktop, without having to ask here in the forum how to do that…P.
PPC, I think the detection process for screen and internet connection should be added to the ~/.desktop-session/startup program.
Yes, I can see yours is intended to provide easy access to commonly needed mostly control functions. If I was a beginning user, I might find like something like that to be very handy on my toolbar. marcel maybe can comment on that idea.
Yes, I can see yours is intended to provide easy access to commonly needed mostly control functions. If I was a beginning user, I might find like something like that to be very handy on my toolbar. marcel maybe can comment on that idea.
I wrote the Portuguese version of my “Welcome screen” so Marcelo could use it in is antiX installs. I even translated it as “Painel de Controlo” (the same expression as MS Window’s Control Panel), so Marcelo and his users could at least perform the basic actions listed there. 🙂
P.
We could even copy the script and add it as a function to the welcome screen.
Not easily and safely, due to the chicken/egg setuid security aspect.
I would insist that the setuid script should have limited functionality
and that it will not accept (nor attempt to parse/sanitize) arbitrary commandline arguments.xref:
persist-save –followup-command
https://github.com/BitJam/Persist-Scripts/commit/a94ec80368ce9cef4654d2d9a36b9412a743b335This weekend I’ll try to get the screen detect and wifi detect working from flashdrive on my dual 4K video laptop with 1 screen and 2, and also try it on a regular machine, and try base as well. I’ve made bootable USB 3.0 SSD based flashdrives of 19.3 x64 full and base to work with.
I will call Xecure’s welcome screen if skidoo’s flag is not already set to avoid. I doubt that I will figure out the fancy stuff there, but I won’t worry about that, some better coder will come along and make that work properly, I hope.
I won’t be able to test the multiple 4K screens with the HiDPI automatice detection as I found out that I can’t use my external HDMI-1 screen with antiX, just MS Win, thus far. Oh well.
Xecure
When connected during boot, does it also not detect it? I have a device that needs to have displays and other devices connected before boot for them to be detected properly. Try that if possible.
antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.No, I powered it all the way down, checked the setup, rebooted, and still nothing. The info found on the web says it has the have nVidia drivers to work due to Optimus video with nVidia only driving the external HDMI port. That will make it close to impossible to get a good test from the flashdrive.
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