How to trouble shoot when beginners are using ToonTalk

Dear ToonTalkers,

Here's a tough design problem:

Via 'Set Options' ToonTalk "knows" whether users are experts or
beginners. Experts are presented with trouble shooting advice (and also
crashes are handled differently) while the thinking was that beginners
don't want to see trouble shooting dialogs. However, some of them may be
very important even for beginners. Here's the main ones:

TROUBLE_SHOOT_GENERAL_ABNORMAL_EXIT --- advice if ToonTalk is crashing
or a user is terminating rather than exiting ToonTalk
TROUBLE_SHOOT_GENERAL_TROUBLE or TROUBLE_SHOOT_DIRECTX --- some internal
errors and what to do (e.g. try running in a window rather than
full-screen)

TROUBLE_SHOOT_TOO_SLOW --- advice about how to change settings if
ToonTalk is running too slowly

TROUBLE_SHOOT_VERY_FAST_IN_LOW_RESOLUTION --- suggesting that ToonTalk
can be run with sharper graphics and still be fast enough

TROUBLE_SHOOT_JOYSTICK_CALIBRATION --- if you have a joystick connected
and it isn't behaving as expected

TROUBLE_SHOOT_MOUSE --- only seems to come up when running ToonTalk
under an emulator (like older versions of Virtual PC on a Mac)

TROUBLE_SHOOT_BAD_INSTALLATION -- toontalk.ini or the ToonTalk directory
isn't as expected

TROUBLE_SHOOT_BAD_DEMO -- a demo didn't replay correctly

TROUBLE_SHOOT_EXTENSION_NOT_INSTALLED -- using a foreign bird whose DLL
is not installed

TROUBLE_SHOOT_TTS_SELECT_FAILURE -- some error with text-to-speech so no
speech

TROUBLE_SHOOT_JAVA_APPLET -- advice if something went wrong generating a
Java applet

TROUBLE_SHOOT_BIG_NUMBERS_SLOW -- currently the first time you create a
number with more than 5000 digits, ToonTalk warns you that things may
slow down and how to work around it

TROUBLE_SHOOT_TIME_TRAVEL_SLOW -- doesn't exist but I think it should

So here's my problem. Beginners may just be confused or annoyed by these
dialogs. And yet the lack of them can be confusing as well. E.g., If
ToonTalk is too slow to run well you should be informed that there are
ways to speed it up (e.g. lower quality graphics, no speech, no time
travel).

I'm wondering if these should always come up for beginners or not. Or
maybe only a subset of these?

Opinions? Solutions?

Best,

-ken





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