I second this.  The trade-off against real estate for the optional buttons
value is worth it.

It will call attention to the fact that buttons are not defined for some of
the tools a developer encounters.  However, I'm pretty sure there have been
postings to add those as required on this list.

I also prefer the annotations pane enabled since I'm always looking to see
which change sets are impacted.  But that's a more advanced use.

 - Steve

On 4/18/02 3:32 AM, "Brian T. Rice" <water at tunes.org> wrote:

> Hi Scott,
> I'm not sure if this is appropriate for the mailing list, but it can't
> hurt.
> 
> On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 10:00 PM, Dan Ingalls wrote:
> 
>> Folks -
>> 
>> Scott Wallace and I have just made a pact to finish up the 3.2 release
>> in the next week or so.  It's mostly straightforward, but we wanted to
>> check with everyone about three things:
>> 
>> 1.  Scott will be making an initial setting for all the preferences.
>> If you have a strong feeling about these or know of any problems with
>> preferences, etc., please let him know ASAP.
> 
> I apologize for not bringing this up sooner, but I would *very* much
> prefer having the Optional Buttons preference turned on for the release
> image. This feature is nice and stable now, and it gives new users and
> programmers a convenient visual cue for the good tools that are
> available for exploring the code and developing some understanding.
> Similarly, the file lists become that much easier to handle.
> 
> I run the #Squeak channel on OpenProjects IRC network, and a lot of my
> time is spent helping both new and old programmers (including quite a
> few students from a certain Squeak-using university which shall not be
> named) to understand just how good a set of tools they have for
> exploring. Very often they have a rather shallow understanding of most
> of the systems in Squeak until they discover merely that these tools are
> even available, and the Preferences panes are often a bit daunting for
> them to navigate (often they don't know what most things mean). Of
> course the experts know what suits them best and often turn this off.
> But for the (perhaps) thousands of users who download Squeak to see what
> this Smalltalk stuff is all about, it's asking a bit much to put a tool
> in a shifted menu that is relevant only on a text selection!
> 
> I hope I've made a sufficient case here, because 3.2 will obviously be
> the official release for some time. You'd be really surprised at how
> many people enter the channel claiming a year of fiddling with Squeak,
> very impressed, but feeling relatively powerless, until things like this
> are revealed to them. Enlightenment truly does ensue. :) Seriously, I
> took it for granted that people with experience not only "knew" of
> protocol and hierarchy browsers and such, but were using them; then I
> discovered over time that each of them was running into many
> difficulties because of this kind of blind spot. I've even seen people's
> complaints over the nearly total lack of online documentation become
> much more calm when they realize how they can learn about the code.
> 
> Thanks,
> ~
> Brian T. Rice
> 
> 
>