| Chesapeake Times, Vol 5 | April 2021 A lot of software applications have a Splash Screen and many of us do not really think much about it. From time to time the Splash Screen may change. Typically the text changes while the graphics change occasionally. We have updated the Splash Screen in our up and coming SonarWiz V7.07.05. Below is a screenshot of our old Splash Screen and of our new one to highlight the changes. |
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| The Splash Screen is the user’s introduction to SonarWiz. The Splash Screen serves as an important indicator about the startup of SonarWiz. The new SonarWiz Splash Screen adds several new features that were not found in the previous version. These features are: Version number, build date, copyright information, and user license information. These features are dynamically created. This means that they are drawn each time SonarWiz starts up. This saves programmer and artist time so that a new Splash Screen image does not need to be created every time we update the software. This also ensures that these items are up to date for each release and allows programmers to spend more time adding new important features and fixing bugs. In addition to these new features the look has changed. Not only has the graphic become more colorful, the startup and project loading messages have been made easier to read using an increased font size. The Splash Screen serves as an important indicator about the startup of SonarWiz. At a glance it tells the user what version of the program they are using, who the software is licensed to, and at which step SonarWiz is in the startup process. The startup message area is outlined in the image below.  Startup Message Area Without a Splash Screen the user would not know what they are waiting for, or in the case of a problem, where the startup went wrong. It is important to give the user an indication that SonarWiz is starting up and is doing something. Otherwise the user may think SonarWiz has not started or is stuck. Next time you start up SonarWiz or another software application have a look at the Splash Screen. -Christopher Favreau, Chief Technology Officer |