Created attachment 99270 [details] [review]
patch

Andre, I still think that we shouldn't remove it, instead educate them to file  better reports. Can we think innovatively to see how we can make the user file a better one? May be a dialog to tell what not to do with a 'Don't show this again' check? Or something else...

FAQ thing is awesome. No doubts :)

CC'ing other guys for a second opinion.

Maybe add some verbage to the Bug Buddy dialog clarifying what the feature should and should not be used for.  Would apply to all applications, really.  That would require a change to bug-buddy itself, of course.

@mbarnes:
we already have too much text in bug-buddy that is read by nobody. example: we warn users that the submitted data may contain confidential information, and that users should review the data they are going to submit. nevertheless reporters complain about stuff that was submitted.

(In reply to comment #2)
> instead educate them to file better reports.
if that is meant for real, then you may rewrite 90% of the error strings. look at firefox and why they are successful - if i can't reach a website, it tells me possible reasons in the error message, in a language that even my parents would understand. it tells me what *I*, the user, can do. evolution's messages are often cryptic and technical (you studied CS? then they are no problem, of course).

okay. here we go, let's rewrite the error messages and dialogs. i should collect my favourite bug reports in the next weeks, stuff like "can't send mail" or "don't work". otherwise i will probably stop triaging the non-crasher reports as well.
feel free to query bugzilla for evolution bugs with status whiteboard "errormessages". i collected some of them already.

Created attachment 99393 [details] [review]
patch

only adds the FAQ menu item.
sometimes it does not work for me at the first try, so testing the patch appreciated!

uargh. wait...

Created attachment 99394 [details] [review]
okay. this one works :)

I agree with srag to keep there that menu option. Maybe hide it more, or if they open it, just show a message about what they can and what they cannot do with it, so some of them will reject to fill useless bug reports. It will be just for Evolution, no change in bug-buddy.

I agree with Andre that there is too much text in bug-buddy. None wants to read it, they just want help a bit (at least send a crasher) and then get it second chance. I saw many bugs without "What were you doing..." text.

I'm not sure if comparing firefox with evolution is good idea, at least you have there a page, not a dialog, which describe the problem. You know, the text in a page looks really different then huge error dialog.

Anyway, I agree to improve error dialog texts, but it's not a work for coders, it's work for language-educated people/users (Users will write, users will understand.) Some kind of error dialogs with most common advices can help, even sometimes can be totally odd. It really depends on an error type - so no generic messages, but specialized for "each" error code we consider as worth better explanation. Maybe something like this?

Andre, I'm all for rephrasing/correcting error dialogs. If anyone wants to take this, and suggest/post better messages, it can be taken in. I'm sure that it anyway needs to get better once the non-intrusive things are in as it uses a lot from those dialogs.

Anyways commit this for 2.21.3

patch committed to trunk: revision 34589.

i should have seperately filed a tracking bug about improving user visible strings earlier: bug 502515. please comment, or add dependencies, or ignore.

Is this still an open issue or can this bug be closed?

fixed, closed, thanks.