Plugin: Info button

[Luc]

A number of plugins contain extensive analysis of the presented data and the presented output is not always obvious to the user.

As an example the Precipitation Analysis plugin.
I checked the Balance part and I can choose from 7 to 365 days of balance with the default set to 30 days.
Two graphs are shown with legends like '1.Jan' etc.(without a year, may be due to my user settings somewhere).
The second graph show two lines: one is Station, the other is Normal.
I can remember that I have set some monthly normals somewhere, but forgot where. So, which normal data is used?

Then a table is shown with data for each day my weather station has data (from 2013-09-18 until today).
The meaning of columns Day and mm I understand, but the columns %, Station and Normal it's just guessing.

Now I come to my Idea:
Wouldn't it be nice when each plugin with advanced analysis has a Info button which would explain the meaning of the presented data?
For instance: what does the number of days balance mean? I have no single clue which 30 days are used when 30 is chosen.

I know Jachym has put tremendous effort in creating such templates. It would be a pity when we don't use them because we don't understand how to interpret them.

[Jachym]

Hi Luc,
there are a few issues with this, although I know it is a nice idea.

1) time - it really is impossible for me in terms of the time it would take to explain every single button in the template and it would be extremely difficult, basically impossible, to guess what is totally obvious and what is not, so I really would have to explain everything

2) language - this is probably the main issue. The language db is not made for long texts. This means it would have to be broken by sentences, which in terms of time again is a nightmare (as I found out with the Summary block). And it is also true that I try to use icons as much as possible because it is very difficult to get the translations for as many langs as possible. Usually the main languages are fine, but people get put off when they see to many new strings and the result is they dont translate anything. And I dont want to end up in a situation where every plugin has large amount of untranslated text + the time issue with the translation implementation.

3) update - this would require updating practically every block and plugin - something that again takes time and is something users dont like... and it annoys people when maintaining the page takes up too much time.


What I can do however is create a special section for this here on the forum, where anything unclear can be discussed. Either other users who understand it can explain it, if no-one replies, I would.

[Luc]

Hi Jachym,

I first searched in other places for extra information. The first place to look for was the info section of the template itself.
For me it's no problem to read the explanation in English: what I don't understand I will let Google Translate do the job.
In many cases for me translations to both Dutch and German will tell me what is meant.

Sometimes things were explained in the blog, but this is not a very practical way for me to search, so I don't look there.

Your suggestion to create a special section for unclear plugin and/or block presentation is a good alternative.

Thanks.