IntroPages

= "Welcome" to the Eclipse Intro =

PageOutline

Eclipse provides intro pages, accessible via the menu Help/Welcome, which also show up when the user starts CSS for the first time.

CSS products used to include a custom welcome/intro.

ITER collaborators suggested the use of the "Universal Intro", see online help.

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The following is based on thoughts collected from email threads; a basis for discussion

== Use the Universal Intro == CSS products should use the Universal Intro. That way plugins that offer something that's visible to the user (SDS/BOY, Alarm System, Data Browser, ...) can contribute content. No need to update a custom, product-specific intro when adding/changing plugins.

== How to Contribute == Assuming you have a plugin org.csstudio.XXX and you want to provide intro content, there are two options:

a. Within the plugin org.csstudio.XXX. This is the easiest to do, and all users of the plugin will get the intro content. If site integrators want to disable it, they can do this via a "" section in the org.eclipse.ui.intro.universal/INTRO_DATA. Since the plugin depends on org.eclipse.ui.intro and ....universal, these dependencies are forced into the product, which is OK if you want to use the universal intro. b. In a separate plugin org.csstudio.XXX.intro. Makes the inclusion/exclusion more straight forward, but adds more plugins, and is additional work. Allows building products without universal intro (or no intro at all).

In the long run, intro content in a separate plugin is probably most flexible. In the short run, it might be OK to add the intro to the existing plugin, then extract it to a separate plugin as the need arises.

== Where to Contribute == Technically, one can contribute to universal intro pages overview,firststeps,tutorials,samples,whatsnew,migrate,webresources, or even define new pages.

Should we enable them all in a CSS product? Many may remain empty, which confuses the user.

Suggestion is that CSS products only enable the following:

• overview This is where each site can publish their site-specific content. {{{ Welcome to CSS for ... users! CSS is ... To get started, read the 'first steps' that introduce the various tools. You can also read the online help, ... }}}

• firststeps This is where each tool, via a separate org.csstudio..intro plugin, can contribute some how-to-get-started content.

• whatsnew This is were each site and each tool may add info about most recent changes, so users who've used CSS before can read up on what changed.

== Issue: Main Intro Screen == There isn't much to customize beyond

• Title
• Small icon

NSLS2 example shows that one can hack into the Title by setting it to ".....

Second line

Third line

" because the title happens to be rendered as a level 1 header. Unclear how long that will work.

== Issue: Cheat Sheets == In principle, it's nice to be able to link to Cheat Sheets from for example the firststeps section with code like this: {{{

But that requires the plugin org.eclipse.platform, which in turn adds quite some intro content that is useful for Eclipse programmers but potentially confusing for CSS end-users.