Re: [bug-gtypist] "Beginner mode"

[Tim Marston]

Fi Felix,

Sorry for the slow response.  Been busy again recently!  :o(

On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 09:18:25PM +0200, Felix Natter wrote:
> a while ago we thought about a "beginner mode" which turns off the
> welcome screen, sets stuff such das --max-error=10 and which can be
> turned off by pressing 'D' on the welcome screen (by modifying the
> config file automatically).

That's not quite right.  We decided on having a "beginners tutorial"
(welcome screen) which *tells* the user how to set --max-error (and also
about stuff like "drills vs. speed tests").  Additionally, there was
going to be a config-file-only switch that disabled the beginner
tutorial, but that switch wasn't going to set --max-error.  (By the way,
"--no-welcome-screen" sounds like a good name for this switch.)

> An alternative that I want to discuss is having an option
> --no-welcome-screen which will be turned on by pressing 'D' on the
> welcome screen, and keeping the fine-grained options for beginners
> (--max-error=10, show spaces and newlines, ...).  Setting up gtypist
> with a "beginner profile" would then be done by creating a config file
> with:
> 
> no-welcome-screen
> max-error=10
> ...
> 
> Creating this config file could be done manually (with the commands
> mentioned in the manual, of course), or by an option
> --create-beginner-profile (which would ask before overwriting the
> config file).

To be honest, I don't think this is a good idea.  New users will already
hear about --max-error and where to find more help with using gtypist
(from the welcome screen).  And I can't really see a scenario in which
this new command-line switch would be useful.  It seems a bit
unnecessary to me.  Can you explain why we would want this?

-- 
Tim Marston
ed.am