Blocks (and UI) with No Help Info

[cycomachead]

This isn't urgent, but it would be nice to have every block contain some help info. I'm also going to list some places where the help descriptions could be improved, at least based on my experience.

There are quite a few places where there are BYOB blocks, but with little noticeable differences (many on operators). I didn't include those for now, since most people wouldn't notice.

• Motion:
  • Every block has help, yay! :)
  • [ ] The 'move' block could explain what a 'step' is, and should state that it's in the direction the sprite is facing.
  • [ ] Go To and Glide blocks might want to be updated to note that the stage is no longer guaranteed to be the same size.
• Control:
  • [x] message reporter has no help
  • [ ] When X ... blocks all have BYOB images
  • [ ] Wait Until, if, if else, repeat have images which were made w/o zebra coloring.
  • [x] stop blocks have no help
  • [x] call has no help
  • [x] When I start.., Create ... Delete ... clone blocks all have no help
  • [x] Pause all has no help.
• Looks:
  • [ ] switch costume to and next costume should be zebra colored
  • [ ] set graphics effect should show the original image
• Sensing:
  • [ ] color is touching color needs zebra coloring
  • [x] answer (reporter) has no help
  • [ ] mouse x y reporters use -180, 180 as stage size (it could be different)
  • [x] mouse x y show the mouse coordinates image from BYOB which isn't in Snap!
  • [ ] key space pressed? has a BYOB image
  • [x] timer (reporter) has no help
  • [x] costume # of Sprite has no help (I think this one could really use some examples.)
  • [x] http:// XX has no help
  • [x] turbo mode? has no help
  • [x] set turbo mode has no help
  • [x] current date has no help (My fault!!)
• Sound:
  • [ ] ALL blocks have BYOB images
  • [ ] tempo and set tempo need zebra coloring
• Operators:
  • [ ] rings have images which are cut off
  • [ ] mod has BYOB images / needs zebra coloring
  • [ ] or needs zebra coloring
  • [ ] join is using the non-variadic BYOB block
  • [x] split has no help
  • [ ] length of could use an example with a number (length of 12 is 2)
• Pen:
  • [ ] pen down should make it clear that pen down itself doesn't leave a mark
  • [ ] change pen color should have a reference as to what the numbers are (like set does)
• Variables:
  • [ ] Many of the watchers in the images are BYOB
  • [ ] Make a Variable has BYOB images
  • [ ] set, change have BYOB images / need zebra coloring
  • [ ] all but first of text is overlapping with images
  • [ ] list contains the word "exactly" isn't true since it's case-insensitive. There could also be an example of nested lists.
  • [ ] insert has a BYOB block
• Other:
  • [ ] All code mapping blocks need help info
• UI Elements:
  • [x] None of the UI elements that have a "help..." menu option show help info.
  • [x] sprite corral
  • [x] create a sprite buttons
  • [x] File / Cloud / Settings / Small Stage / Presenter / Start / Stop / Pause
  • [x] Palette options
  • [x] Sprite rotation options
  • [x] Other sprite creation options
  • [x] snap logo
  • [x] IDE background has a help option as well.

I don't know that all the UI elements /need/ help info, but it is a bit confusing if there is a help option which does nothing when clicked.

[brianharvey]

Righto. I'll get caught up on help screens as soon as the proposal is done.

[cycomachead]

Also, whenever you get to it, I'll have a folder of /every/ block exported w/ default parameters for all primitives and libraries at both 1x and 2x.

[nathan]

Could we do these in HTML or XML or JSON this time? The images are a lot harder to maintain.

[brianharvey]

@nathan: "These" meaning help files? I would very much like not to redo every help file. (Right now some of them are from Scratch, never mind BYOB.) My priority is the blocks with no help at all.

@cycomachead: For some reason I don't remember, every context menu on every morph has "help" as a placeholder entry. There is no intention to provide actual help on most of them. I agree that that's confusing and would be happy for someone to investigate why the "help" is needed.

P.S. I tagged this "tools/libraries" as a standin for the nonexistent "Brian this is for you" tag.

[cycomachead]

@nathan: "These" meaning help files? I would very much like not to redo every help file. (Right now some of them are from Scratch, never mind BYOB.) My priority is the blocks with no help at all.

I think the idea is that we can render text and block examples together and update things like backgrounds without re-rendering all the images. I agree it'd be excellent to have, and I'd probably fix more of these issues.

As far as the menus... I know why it's there. It's in the code! It'd be easy to take out, but could lead to some special cased menus? How many actual (non-block) morph items have help? If it's 50/50, each morph should just have a boolean property associated with it.

Also remind me to update this issue to have checkboxes for each item,

• [x] like this. (Syntax is - [ ] as the bullet for each list item.)

[cycomachead]

@brianharvey I updated the checklist with your recent fix of the help screens. :) You can check other things off if you fixed them already or don't think they need fixing.

Also thanks for getting to the date help screen!