general improvements for Sculpt

[ttcoder at netcourrier.com]

> BEGINNER FRIENDLY OS?
> =======================
> 
> *) I know that this operating system is not developed to be user
> friendly, but it could be great to put some helps for beginners, like
> a graphical  instruction box when clicking on certain things in
> Leitzentrale, a graphical example could be the following:
> 
> |------------|
>                |-------|
> |  depot   | (when clicking on it appears an info box) --> | info  |
> |_______|
>           |-------|
> 
> (sorry for the bad ASCII image)

Can't contribute much or at all for the rest, but here's my 2 cents on app discovery and inline help : in my apps I provide a thin text-field (one-liner label with reduced font size) at the bottom of all windows, and change the text dynamically when the mouse pointer hovers over various buttons or menus or whichever widget.

Something similar occurs in a web browser, but only when you hover above a URL, so much less useful. From my memories of using MS Word a few centuries ago I think it provded something similar too, though restricted to menu items, not toolbar buttons.

The alternative is to use tool-tips, but I'm not a big fan of those (the short delay before a tooltip appears is too long when you actually want to explore/discover the UI, and too short when you don't ; by contrast, my scheme is instant when you need it, and does not get in the way when you don't look at it).

Cedric