Ted Gould wrote:
Yes, I think the text needs to change -- but I think the dialog needs to stay.
I'd like to recommend disabling the dialog, at least until it's pretty common people will have most extensions. For one thing, it's extremely disconcerting, even for someone like me who isn't exactly a computer novice (I've been using and programming computers for years). It's simply that you don't expect a message like this popping up as soon as you start a program, and before having even read it I immediately fear something terrible has happened. It's usually simply not a very good sign if a message pops up even before the application is visible, as it usually indicates a very basic failure (something like "I'm sorry, but this thing I really need isn't there, so bye bye."). And who says the user will even want to use these extensions (I know I don't), so why bother complaining about some missing extensions that some people will never need or even know about. That is also part of what makes it confusing to the average user, they have no idea what an extension is, let alone whether they need it or not (I did know btw, as I read some discussion about the message on the mailinglist, but as I said, the "damage" is in fact done before the user even reads the message).
And yes, the message could definitely be a bit clearer (and it would be convenient if the error log was easier to open, perhaps by pressing a button on the message dialog?).
I myself am in a similar situation with a Winamp plugin of mine, it can make use of extensions in the form of a LAME or Ogg Vorbis dll (as well as exe's, but that's another story). Initially I took a route that was more or less opposite of what InkScape now does with this warning, I simply didn't list these formats as an option if the dll wasn't available. People didn't like that though, as they thought the plugin didn't support these formats at all when they first installed the plugin. Now I simply list the formats but give a warning when the user selects a format that misses one or more dependencies (the warning is issued when the user closes the config dialog, not immediately after selecting the format). The warning explains the format misses some dependencies and tells the user what exactly is missing. This method basically lets users live in blissfull ignorance until they actually want to use one of these formats and then they'll be asked to make sure some other things are installed. For the user this much more natural, as the message is directly related to something they try to do. I've not had any complaints about this method yet btw (and it has been in use for some time now).
As a kind of compromise, at least consider delaying the message until InkScape has started itself (when the main window is visible), that way it's less troubling (InkScape is already shown, so it obviously can't be that bad).