[Libreoffice] Better wording for 'Update links' question

Joe Smith jes at martnet.com
Wed Dec 22 10:06:12 PST 2010


On 12/21/2010 12:09 PM, Jan Holesovsky wrote:
> Hi,
>
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32548
>
> The bug says: when I open a certain .odp document, I get a pop-up
> question asking "Update all links? Yes/No"
>
> Anybody who knows this functionality, can you please provide a better
> wording? ;-)  Just post it here, I'll integrate it.
>
> Thank you a lot,
> Kendy

Believe me, I'm no fan of this cryptic prompt, but I'm afraid this won't 
be an improvement. The wording of the prompt is not the primary problem.

Experts already know what "Update links?" means; non-experts will not 
understand enough to answer the question correctly even with improved 
wording. All we accomplish by changing the wording is to make everyone 
read and deal with a longer and more complicated (and common!) 
prompt--which still does not completely and correctly inform the user.

Does the new wording help the user to answer this obvious question:
"Why would I not want to get all the latest external data?"

The decision at hand is too complex for an accurate prompt, given the 
way OOo uses links: links may point not only to external data, but also 
to internal data, which if you choose to update, may ruin your document 
(mail merge output, for example). In this case, the improved wording 
will be incorrect and misleading. In the end, to answer the prompt 
correctly, OOo requires the user to have knowledge outside of what the 
prompt text can possibly convey. The longer text may just make a poor 
situation worse by forcing the user to deal with more verbiage.

Would it be possible to have the prompt remain as it is, with a "Help" 
or "More" button that leads to some expanded explanation?

<Joe



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