Long-term feature Request: Interactive In-App Walkthrough for Beginners

[maninthemiddle01]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

New users may often feel lost when first opening QualCoder—lots of menus, no clear "start here" path. The docs and video tutorials are great but live outside the app. The AI Setup Wizard (AI > Setup Wizard) proves QualCoder can do approachable, hand-holding onboarding beautifully :).

Describe the solution you'd like

An optional in-app guided walkthrough for newcomers, extending the AI Setup Wizard pattern to cover core functionality:

• "Welcome! Want a quick tour?" prompt on first launch (skippable)
• Highlighted tooltips walking through essentials: creating projects → importing files → building codes → coding data → running reports
• Always re-accessible via Help > Beginner Walkthrough

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Linking to external tutorials on first launch: this pulls users out of the app and feels less welcoming
• Expanded tooltips on every button: overwhelming and doesn't guide a workflow
• PDF quick-start guide bundled in Help

Additional context

Meeting users inside QualCoder makes that first experience far less intimidating and supports adoption in academic settings. The existing AI Setup Wizard already validates this UX pattern—this would be a natural, broader extension. Happy to help brainstorm, write tutorial copy, or test!

[kaixxx]

Thank you for this suggestion.
Let me add an idea that might be helpful in addition, or maybe even as a replacement, for such an onboarding wizard:
Currently, the tabs "Manage", "Coding", etc. are basically empty at startup, and contain only a hint to use the menu for more options. What about replacing this with a nicely formatted introductory description (in markdown) of what this tab or workspace is for, which role it has in the research process, and a list of clickable links that allow to open the corresponding dialogs (code text, code images...) without using the menu.
From my experience in workshops, these empty tabs are one of the more confusing aspects of QualCoder for absolute beginners.

What do you think? Could this even be a replacement for an "onboarding wizard"?

[ccbogel]

@kaixxx yes that's a good idea and easy to implement. So for a start in ui_main.ui the label_manage, label_coding , label_reports can be much more information rich. And replace the label widgets with qtextedits or qtextbrowsers so that links can be opened.

Doing an onboarding wizard is a good idea, but yes, would be a lot more work to try and make it workable. A possibility for a future time.

[kaixxx]

@ccbogel, some technical details:

• QLabels can have clickable links (html ankers) as well. Connect to the linkActivated signal. Also, they can render html or markdown formatting.
• One small issue et the moment: When the dialogs in the tabs are closed (e.g., after the settings dialog was used), the labels are hidden and the tabs are completely empty (if I remember correctly).

[ccbogel]

The advantage with a non-editable qtextbrowser is that formatting would be nicer.
I have updated the information displayed in the Manage, Coding and Reports tabs. The information remains when Settings is opened and closed.

[kaixxx]

@ccbogel I think the added info to the blank tabs is a huge help for new users.
If it's OK for you, I am going to work on this a little more:

• making it more readable in the different styles (in dark mode, the links are barely visible)
• making the text browser resize with the window
• maybe some functional enhancements, like clickable links to dialogs in QualCoder, not only to the help files.

[kaixxx]

Forgot something I want to add:

• make the text in the text browser translatable.

[ccbogel]

@kaixxx I found adding a layout was causing a display problem, but try if you can work that out easily.
I made the text in LibreOffice and exported to html.
Maybe do similar and add versions to information.py in other langauges rather than do the _() method.
So when the language setting is de for example it could load up the Deutsch version instead.

[ccbogel]

@kaixxx it looks great

[kaixxx]

Thank you, @maninthemiddle01, for the inspiration to improve the onboarding of new users. How do you like the result so far: #1372 ?

This is as far as I want to push this for now. I would suggest closing this issue. What do the others think?

[ccbogel]

yes, close the issue now.