Helping Windows first time users

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 6:02 AM boB Stepp <robertvstepp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if the last screen of the installer should have a checkbox,
> checked by default, that launches IDLE.  IDLE would then display a
> helpful text file on this first launch describing how to use IDLE, how
> to find and launch it again, etc.  As well have it describe all of the
> help you are advocating here as well.  It would be a minor annoyance
> for experienced users to have to uncheck the box before clicking
> finish, but I think it might have a good chance of getting new users
> off to a reliable start.  Many other Windows program installers are
> setup similarly to launch the program being installed.  This is a
> little different as IDLE is not Python, but that is a minor quibble, I
> think.

It's provided by default, it's part of the standard library, and it's
a good consistent interface for Windows users. I'd be in favour of
this. It's also not as vulnerable to the problem of "no matter how
much info you throw at people, they still won't read it".

Of course, this would mean there'd be some who still won't figure out
how to open up Idle any other way, so they'll rerun the installer just
to open up the REPL... but at least it'll work, and the rest is just
https://xkcd.com/763/ material.

ChrisA