How disable help everywhere

[Kodo]

Good day, how disable this everywhere and forever . It interferes with work. I Hate this.

[calbzam]

Hi,

we designed the help system to not only help newcomers but also to prevent frustration to experienced users. The system is able to detect frustration scenarios such us empty views, unused features and so on. Right now there's no way to disable the system but notice that those cards you choose to hide will not appear again.

Can you please get feedback from your users about the messages that shouldn't appear? We can improve the system with their feedback.  

Regards,

Carlos.

[Wolfram]

Well, it HAS the effect of a certain animated paper clip from another company... 😉 , at least for experienced users. Although I agree it's a great feature for new users, and sometimes (although rarely) does show you certain tricks you didn't know about yet, even when you have been using Plastic for years.

For us, the biggest pain point is that you have to click through every single owl AGAIN every time you install the client on a new machine, or do a clean install. So an option to disable it would be helpful. But I wouldn't go that far to say it bothers us that much that we "hate" it.

[calbzam]

Hi,

We are going to release the following task:

[New] 8.0.16.3548
All platforms - Plastic, Gluon: A lot of users have found the contextual help in the Plastic and Gluon UIs very useful, but, for our more advanced users, the help panel was getting in the way without providing any real benefit. 
Now, each help item will only be shown at most once a day, and we will only show more help than that when we detect you are having difficulty with the tool. Also, if the help panel was opened automatically, rather than by pressing the help button, it will hide itself out of the way again after a few minutes.

Btw, if you select "Got it, don't show me again" on the help panel, that help item won't be shown again.

Regards,

Carlos.

[Lazlo]

Some prompts like these are really ridiculous... 50% of the screen (and 100% of my attention) is taken to tell me that... nothing happened, and that was fast?

These prompts break my flow, divert my attention, and I decided I'd be learning Plastic through the Book anyway.

How come there's no way to disable all of them?

I don't know of any software in the world that doesn't let you turn off in-app tips like those.

[calbzam]

Hi Lazlo,

If you are using a recent version,  each help item will only be shown at most once a day. Is this the behavior you are seeing?

These panels a useful not oly for new Plastic users but also in some complex merge scenarios... Anyway, your feedback is appreaciated.

Regards,

Carlos.

[Kurono]

There's a guihelp-dontshowagain.conf file in /user/myuser/appdata/local/plastic/. I guess if you get that file from someone who has all the list of ignored tips, you could disable them all.

[Lazlo]

On 1/2/2020 at 1:41 AM, Kurono said:

There's a guihelp-dontshowagain.conf file in /user/myuser/appdata/local/plastic/. I guess if you get that file from someone who has all the list of ignored tips, you could disable them all.

Can we start a pool of sharing those?

Here are mine so far on this computer:

BrExTipCustomColors
BrExTipUseTheSearch
GluonWkExplSuggestConfigure
GluonWkExplTipUseHistory
PlasticPendingChangesAddedDeleted
PlasticNewVersionAvailable
PlasticPendingChangesSlowTooManyPrivates
PlasticPendingChangesSlowMoveCalculation
BrExTipOnlyRelevant
PlasticPendingChangesWithAdded
PlasticPendingChangesMovedFilesAndDirectories
PlasticPendingChangesEmptyState
PlasticWkExplExplainSearch

On 12/20/2019 at 8:29 AM, calbzam said:

Hi Lazlo,

If you are using a recent version,  each help item will only be shown at most once a day. Is this the behavior you are seeing?

These panels a useful not oly for new Plastic users but also in some complex merge scenarios... Anyway, your feedback is appreaciated.

Regards,

Carlos.

I work on 4 different computers. Each of them gets the same sets of help tips every time. I'm used to Plastic now. They just distract me and take 50% of the screen every time for no valuable new information.

I understand you want to bring contextual help. Maybe a small (max 32px high) banner or notification at the bottom right of the screen could appear when help is available instead? And let users click it if they feel like it's valuable to them.

I also want to reiterate that there should be an option to disable all tips, globally, in one click. Whenever I set up Plastic SCM on a new computer, I have to endure those tips even though they are useless to me.

[Khaled]

On 4/21/2020 at 4:02 PM, Lazlo said:

Can we start a pool of sharing those?

BrExGeneralIntro
BrExTipOnlyRelevant
BrExTipUseTheSearch
BrExTipFilterBranches
BrExTipCustomColors
PlasticPendingChangesMerge
PlasticMergeNoConflicts
BrExSlowRangeTooBig
PlasticPendingChangesFrustrationRefreshNoFilter
PlasticPendingChangesDotPrivate
PlasticPendingChangesWithAdded
PlasticMergeWithConflicts
PlasticNewVersionAvailable
PlasticPendingChangesEmptyState
PlasticQueryViewsExplainFilterAndAdvanced
PlasticMergeWithDirectoryConflicts
PlasticPendingChangesMovedOnlyFiles
PlasticPendingChangesMovedFilesAndDirectories
PlasticMergeServerSideMergeFinished
PlasticWkExplExplainSearch

I wish there is an option to completely disable hints, I work with Plastic for 6 years now, I read almost every release note, I don't want any hints while I am working,

PLEASE add Global Disable Hints options.
Thank you

[Veli]

On 4/21/2020 at 4:02 PM, Lazlo said:

Can we start a pool of sharing those?

BrExGeneralIntro
BrExSlowRangeTooBig
BrExTipCustomColors
BrExTipFilterBranches
BrExTipOnlyRelevant
BrExTipUseContextMenu
BrExTipUseTheSearch
GluonWkExplSuggestConfigure
GluonWkExplTipUseHistory
PlasticMergeNoConflicts
PlasticMergeServerSideMergeFinished
PlasticMergeWithConflicts
PlasticMergeWithDirectoryConflicts
PlasticNewVersionAvailable
PlasticPendingChangesAddedDeleted
PlasticPendingChangesDotPrivate
PlasticPendingChangesEmptyState
PlasticPendingChangesFrustrationRefreshNoFilter
PlasticPendingChangesMerge
PlasticPendingChangesMovedFilesAndDirectories
PlasticPendingChangesMovedOnlyFiles
PlasticPendingChangesOnboarding
PlasticPendingChangesSlowMoveCalculation
PlasticPendingChangesSlowTooManyPrivates
PlasticPendingChangesWithAdded
PlasticQueryViewsExplainFilterAndAdvanced
PlasticReposExplained
PlasticWkExplExplainSearch
PlasticWkExplPendingChangesVisualStudioFirstTime
PlasticWkExplRunUpdate
PlasticWorkspacesExplained

Here's my guihelp-dontshowagain.conf combined with above. As a long time user who work from multiple computers and on a lot of projects, this is one the annoyances I have on the product.

I get it it's a useful feature for first time users, but there is no reason for me to disable these messages on each of my computers all the time. I fail to understand what is gained by not giving any option to disable these help messages.

Personally I would be fine if the option to disable all messages would be just a line I need to add in a conf file. Like the ones above.

[stevemiller]

I use lots of different complex software, and non of them require an obtrusive, obnoxious help system like this. As was mentioned above, this is akin to the microsoft paperclip from the 90s. Its very bizarre that you haven't learned from that mistake.

"We're only going to spam you each tip once a day" is a weak justification for bad UX. Just put a global disable option in place for people who can look up help for themselves when they need it. I can't imagine why you would fight this option for people who want it?

[calbzam]

Hi,

I've just shared with the team and It is one of the items on the quality of life improvements list that we will start tackling at the beginning of next year.

We will let you know when it's available.

Regards,

Carlos.

[Edwige]

Hi! Developers in my team are not happy with all the help popups as well, so I'm adding a message here in hope disabling help messages will be included in a future update

[unfa]

I've created an account just to say this.

These pop-up constantly tell me the same thing and the option to turn them off is not working:



Is this checkbox a placeholder that was never really connected to anything on the back-end?

Plastic's GUI has numerous elements that take up screen space and are not possible to get rid of, like this one:

I don't care. At least let me click "I get it, don't show this again". What would be really the best thing is a checkbox in the preferences to turn off all of these notifications, so I can focus on my work, and not get assaulted by random self-promotion.

This makes me want to look for a 3rd party GUI for Plastic that would not be shoving unwanted information in my face.

Thanks.

[calbzam]

Hi,

I'm afraid we cannot reproduce this issue. After clicking ok "Ok", this is not working? What is your OS and Plastic version?

You can also disable it in the "C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\plastic4\plasticgui.conf" file:

DisableAllHelp=True

 

Quote

Plastic's GUI has numerous elements that take up screen space and are not possible to get rid of, like this one:

 

If you click on "Learn more", the informative message should disappear. I know it can bit a bit confusing that this is not included as a regular "tip" in the GUI when disabling them.

 

Regards,

Carlos.