First run experience and onboarding

[Mr.Red]

@zef

Interesting. I wonder what makes it feel like "just a website" to you, I thought silverbullet always had an "appy" feel to it, just squeezed into a browser tab. So "unleashing" like this wouldn't be that strange. Could it be that you've been operating in SB for such a long time that you're just used to it being a website?

I gave it another thought and try to see it as an App, but the knowledge that Silverbullets is a Website and knowing how Silverbullet works behind the scene, is definitely influencing my judgement to see it as an native App. (So the problem might be my brain playing tricks on me), like you said, this might be due to using it so much (for the last 1,5 years) in the browser or as an installed PWA.

@zef

Yes, absolutely. I also want to take this as an opportunity to make this easier to use. I'm thinking about more of a UI for making configuration changes. Perhaps some "starter spaces" to immediately get a bunch of features pre-set up. Very much open to ideas here. Some of these ideas will make more sense in SilverBullet+ specifically, others I would probably simply build into SB.md regular (like a UI for preferences).

Also lots to do in terms of onboarding, I agree.

How would you imagine this walkthroughs, indeed with giant arrows pointing at UI elements and explaining what they are? I suppose I could do that, personally I always try to click close those things, but I also don't immediately have better ideas.

As a general thought, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. There are some many best practices, and i definitely don't want to send you down the "Onboarding workflow" rabbit whole, but there are a lots of great videos online too with Do's and Don'ts about onboarding techniques and best practices.
It doesn't need to be something complex or boring, maybe jusr a simple slideshow with 3-5 slides with

• the main features
• what PagePicker, CommandPicker, LibraryManager is and how to find & use them
• how to create a new page
• basic navigation
• the CONFIG page (maybe the COFIG page should also already have some commented out settings examples, like ( change editor width!!!!, disable TOC,...))
• etc.
  to help the user get started, which can be skipped or closed, or opt out from the beginning with "Don't show this again" for experienced users to skip it with one click after installing.