• Andy (unregistered)

    Nice tip.

  • (cs) in reply to Andy

    I guess it happens...

    Don't see much of a WTF here.

  • (cs)

    They actually checked for FileNotFound and won!

  • Will Perdikakis (unregistered)

    You are posting on WTF, Cancel or Allow?

  • (cs)

    I've seen this like...a hundred times?

  • (cs)

    Nice little chuckle rather than WTF, But hey it's Friday and soon I'll be in the pub. I'm sure I'v seen this tip message before but can't remember where.

  • (cs) in reply to mdk
    mdk:
    I've seen this like...a hundred times?
    Use better software, I guess?

    If there's no tips file, at the very least it should just hide the dialog altogether.

    But I do like the wording..."Did you know that the tips file does not exist?" :)

  • (cs)

    That's actually some really nice fault-tolerant design there.

  • (cs) in reply to Will Perdikakis

    Today is Friday the 13th - a day of suspicion, doom and strange and vile happenings, and the best you could come up with is that someone wrote code that checked for an error condition and displayed a succinct, accurate and detailed (if useless) message indicating to the user what is wrong?

    Hmmm... maybe if the dialog asked "Do you want to play a game?" and then offered a list?

  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    That's actually some really nice fault-tolerant design there.

    Agreed. I don't see the WTF in it.

  • Ozz (unregistered) in reply to AbbydonKrafts
    AbbydonKrafts:
    Zylon:
    That's actually some really nice fault-tolerant design there.

    Agreed. I don't see the WTF in it.

    Agreed. At least it grayed out the "Next Tip" button... CAPTCHA: craaazy - like the day I'm having...

  • Dark Shikari (unregistered)

    That's not a WTF at all, that's very good design. They expected the error as possible and built the program to handle it gracefully.

    I think I've seen that error before... isn't it the GIMP?

  • guy (unregistered) in reply to Saladin
    Saladin:
    mdk:
    I've seen this like...a hundred times?
    Use better software, I guess?

    If there's no tips file, at the very least it should just hide the dialog altogether.

    But I do like the wording..."Did you know that the tips file does not exist?" :)

    If they hid the dialog then the user does not know why. This is the best way they could have designed it in my opinion.

  • (cs)

    This may not be a "true" wtf, but getting a "tip" that the tip file isn't there itself is mildly amusing...

    Could we possibly be running out of true wtfs? =0

  • SHv2 (unregistered)

    perhaps this one is more of a "WTF, error checking actually works?"

  • Joshua (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Hmmm... maybe if the dialog asked "Do you want to play a game?" and then offered a list?

    Would you like to play a game of chess?

  • Richard (unregistered)

    I also recognise that dialog. I believe it's taken from a popular tip-of-the-day sample from MFC. Perhaps this one:

    http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/W-D/dislog/tipoftheday/article.php/c1957/

  • (cs) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Hmmm... maybe if the dialog asked "Do you want to play a game?" and then offered a list?
    1. Tic-tac-toe 2. Global Thermonuclear War 3. Minesweeper 4. Microsoft Hearts

    (WarGames 95 to current)

  • fo0bar (unregistered) in reply to Dark Shikari
    I think I've seen that error before... isn't it the GIMP?
    That's just a GTK dialog, probably not The GIMP specifically (though GTK was invented for The GIMP originally).
  • hapes (unregistered)

    SHALL we play a game?

  • Whitey (unregistered)

    Off topic, but this site deserves to see this. Saw it on digg a few minutes ago.

    http://flickr.com/photos/jeffcarlson/127632129/

  • mav (unregistered) in reply to Whitey

    Haha, wtf. Thats a good one, I like it...

  • (cs)

    Hm... Perhaps this is Deja Vu but I could have sworn I've seen this from an article a while back...

  • FlyboyFred (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    Today is Friday the 13th - a day of suspicion, doom and strange and vile happenings, and the best you could come up with is that someone wrote code that checked for an error condition and displayed a succinct, accurate and detailed (if useless) message indicating to the user what is wrong?

    Hmmm... maybe if the dialog asked "Do you want to play a game?" and then offered a list?

    It's bad luck to be superstitious.

  • (cs)

    Good design a WTF does not make.

    Lately, the Real WTF™ has been this site's submissions.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)

    Try hitting the ESC key when these popup boxes gain focus, it will close them without mouse movement.

  • snoofle (unregistered) in reply to Whitey
    Whitey:
    Off topic, but this site deserves to see this. Saw it on digg a few minutes ago.

    http://flickr.com/photos/jeffcarlson/127632129/

    See today's sidebar

  • jeremy (unregistered) in reply to MX5Ringer

    It's from Lotus Notes. I get it everyday..

  • AdamG (unregistered)

    The window borders are from a Gnome desktop... pretty cool, actually, first time I've seen a desktop Linux WTF on here :)

  • anne (unregistered)

    Why y'all hatin'? I don't "LOL" much, but this one made me LOL.

  • James (unregistered) in reply to anne

    Folks: This is Error'd. Funny popups; amusing mistakes. It doesn't have to be a WTF to show up here.

    That is all.

  • joe mama (unregistered)

    laaaaammmmeeeeeee

  • Southern (unregistered)

    In fact, I didn't know that the Tips file didn't exist in the application directory. It's always nice to learn something new :)

  • (cs) in reply to Will Perdikakis
    Will Perdikakis:
    You are posting on WTF, Cancel or Allow?

    I've always thought that wouldn't be a bad feature (mainly for the "cancel" ability):

    "A co-worker is going to ramble for five minutes, cancel or allow?" "Cancel."

    Would make my day more enjoyable...

  • Some Random Pop-up Potpourri Fan (unregistered) in reply to AnthonyG
    AnthonyG:
    Hm... Perhaps this is Deja Vu but I could have sworn I've seen this from an article a while back...

    If you're a longtime reader of this site, you may have.

    http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Pop-up_Potpourri_0x3a__Announced_By_God.aspx

    Sixth one from the top.

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to Some Random Pop-up Potpourri Fan
    Some Random Pop-up Potpourri Fan:
    AnthonyG:
    Hm... Perhaps this is Deja Vu but I could have sworn I've seen this from an article a while back...

    If you're a longtime reader of this site, you may have.

    http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Pop-up_Potpourri_0x3a__Announced_By_God.aspx

    Sixth one from the top.

    I kind of wish you hadn't posted that. Popup Potpourri was WAY better than Error'd and that link just proves it. That depresses me a little :(

  • (cs)

    This was basically default behaviour for the Tips dialog in VB6, as I recall.

    Yes, yes, I know. The real WTF (TM) is that I still remember the default behaviour for obscure VB6 features.

  • Ananimuss Koward (unregistered) in reply to Andy

    Well; did ya ?

  • Brill Gates (unregistered) in reply to Jivlain

    Yes, yes, I know. The real WTF (TM) is that I still remember the default behaviour for obscure VB6 features.[/quote]

    Oh, how I loved VB6 - as quick as it could be dirty

  • blah (unregistered) in reply to guy

    "the best way they could have designed it" ?

    OK, this is the real WTF : it's perfectly standard practice to nag the user with useless popup saying a barely useful feature doesn't work and that he's probably unable to solve it ?

    The message could have been "the tip file doesn't exist, do you want to... like... write it yourself, maybe ?"

    If you really want to handle this error gracefully, either bury it in a log file that will show only to interested users or people trying to troubleshoot the application, or show a real error message saying something useful, like "try to reinstall the application", or "don't worry, a lazy programmer didn't do his documentation job", or "you can download a free tip file at http://www.tipfilr.com"

  • Kuba (unregistered) in reply to Dark Shikari
    Dark Shikari:
    That's not a WTF at all, that's very good design. They expected the error as possible and built the program to handle it gracefully.

    I think I've seen that error before... isn't it the GIMP?

    Pardon stating the obvious, but the code for a well designed "TIP" window should just not display itself if it cannot find the tip file. Maybe it should pop up an error message box once or somesuch, but putting the error where a tip would go is just braindead from human factors perspective.

  • T$ (unregistered)
    Kuba:
    Pardon stating the obvious, but the code for a well designed "TIP" window should just not display itself if it cannot find the tip file. Maybe it should pop up an error message box once or somesuch, but putting the error where a tip would go is just braindead from human factors perspective.

    I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one. On the one hand, it's not a major feature of the system. Therefore maybe it would be better if it didn't show at all. And then I think about the other side: The IT person who installed this software on someone's PC will want to know if all the features aren't working as they planned. There's always the possibility some tip (which could be considered part of documentation) would solve a problem that the user would otherwise have to call the helpdesk over. Instead they call over the lack of tip, ironic. I'd still say this is a superior solution: for a one day fee of annoying users calling over a faulty tip box, the helpdesk can ensure tips work for the foreseeable future for all their users.

  • Matt (unregistered)

    Gotta agree, I miss Pop-Up Potpourri.

  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to blah
    blah:
    "the best way they could have designed it" ?

    OK, this is the real WTF : it's perfectly standard practice to nag the user with useless popup saying a barely useful feature doesn't work and that he's probably unable to solve it ?

    The message could have been "the tip file doesn't exist, do you want to... like... write it yourself, maybe ?"

    If you really want to handle this error gracefully, either bury it in a log file that will show only to interested users or people trying to troubleshoot the application, or show a real error message saying something useful, like "try to reinstall the application", or "don't worry, a lazy programmer didn't do his documentation job", or "you can download a free tip file at http://www.tipfilr.com"

    Kuba:
    Pardon stating the obvious, but the code for a well designed "TIP" window should just not display itself if it cannot find the tip file. Maybe it should pop up an error message box once or somesuch, but putting the error where a tip would go is just braindead from human factors perspective.

    you two are absolute idiots for not appreciating the artistic genius of this solution. the user is alerted of the problem as gracefully as possible and can uncheck the 'show tips' any time he wants to, so it is indeed only shown once if the user so desires... how can you call this "nagging"?

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