Pop-up hover/tooltip help

[jolene_s]

It would be extremely *helpful* (pun emphasized) if the inline pop-up help 'tips' were available for each item in the Preferences panel (especially!). Particularly all of the items on the advanced/detailed/complete Preferences panel.
In my experience, it seems like the majority of instances in which I don't quite understand a setting and need some clues, those are the items that have no explanation/tips.


A few of the help tips seem to be missing crucial information, or sufficient clarification/specification. For instance:

"Define the colors of the Volume slider"

the tool tip is practically useless… — By specifying the 12 numbers separated by ";" —

First of all, what a lazy way to define this setting in the first place—just a string of numbers with no explanation other than the number of numbers. LOL Seriously… It can not possible take very long to add & label a few more fields!

What does that even mean?
"the 12 numbers" … WHICH 12 numbers? (I wonder if this may be a grammatical/translation error? If not, it really doesn't make any sense and it's very confusing)
And what do the numbers themselves mean? Why are there 12 numbers? What do they represent?! Does each number represent one of 12 "steps" of the color volume representation? Or are they reference points of a gradient? Also: what KIND (format) of number is expected/required? [decimal? Hex?] Is there any 'range' restrictions?—I guess this actually sort of leads into the next question…

Although, FAR MORE importantly:

what color coding format is being used?! Come on! Nobody ever considered the fact that this is rather important, required, prerequisite information?! I find that hard to believe (meaning: back to that almost hyperbolic laziness; because it couldn't possible take more than a matter of seconds to enter that descriptive text into whatever file contains the tooltip text data.

It should not be assumed that there is ANYTHING obvious about this setting! There is NOT!


It would actually probably make sense to "fix" the value field (this actually applies to other settings as well!). The first and most obvious thing that comes to mind on that topic is: the NUMBER of fields! (and we're back to hyperbolic laziness—it can not possibly take very long to a few addition text entry boxes/fields, and to constrain their contents to prevent invalid values/sequences. If a gradient is being defined then there should be a separate field for each reference point on that gradient (the tooltip should describe the volume setting which each value represents).
The most intuitive & helpful way to define this setting would be to include a sample 'patch' of each color that is being defined, as well as a live/dynamically updating rendering of the bar. Clearly! (at least that should have been clear… although I suspect "clear" is relative to laziness—which I'm sure would be 'explained' as a lack of, or limitation of "interest/motivation" by certain code authors. BTW, it's still just laziness!)


Furthermore, I haven't been able to find any further explanation/information/support about this setting anywhere in the documentation, tutorials/guides or on the forum.