[development] Being noisy on installation...

[Nancy Wichmann]

Morbus Iff wrote:
> saw one of my personal pet peeves jump out
> we have enough to worry about then reading /successful/ messages
Maybe I shouldn't have you review my modules, because I do this and support
the practice.

Morbus (et al.) this is not there for someone who knows everything about
Drupal; it is there for those who know next to nothing about Drupal and are
afraid of it.  I maintain a bunch of modules and am constantly amazed at the
number of issues that are opened saying, "How do I use this?"  And I try to
be more helpful in my documentation than many other developers.

Anything that helps the user go on to the next step is an improvement.


Earl Miles wrote:
> installing a new module, I still have trouble figuring out what to do next
Exactly, many users don't have a clue.  Do they need to run update.php next?
Should they immediately go to the settings page (and, BTW, where is it)? Do
they need to set up a vocabulary?

Yes, this should all be documented in the README file -- and a handbook
page.  But there are many users who don't even know that README.txt is a
standard and should be present - oh, and this includes many module
developers.

Jeff Eaton wrote:
> custom profiles and related solutions for clients, it is a *pain* to  have
those modules
> splattering their messages all over during a  carefully managed process.
Jeff, I can sympathize with this, but perhaps Florian Loretan is on the
right track with the hook_tutorial idea.

Zohar Stolar wrote:
> imagine that you have to track all your messages, and give them unique ids
It may very well be a PITA for Drupallers, but this is common practice in
many mainframe systems so that users can open a book that tells them what to
do when they see "IEF123A Invalid option detected: FOO_BAR" (oh, the "A"
also tells the user that "action" is required).  Even though it means some
extra work for me, I am not opposed to this practice.

Catch wrote:
> something linking you directly to the permissions for the module you just
installed and/or the configuration pages
> then the drupal_set_message() is redundant
Amen. The step-by-step process.  But its presence needs to be persistent for
those users who need it.


Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP