The D3DX DLL error

I think the best solusion would be something short like "your version of DirectX is too old, klick OK to download the newest version" And a button named "More information" with all the tecnical things. I've seen this a few times, and it's really helpful. People get scared of that kind of complicated language (i have to admit, at first i didn't even finnish the first post in this thread ). Te best thing to do is to hide it behind a drop-down or something.

What about people who don't have english as their first language?

Also just because you don't understand technology doesnt mean you're dumb. They might not know what directX is or a dll.

People that don't understand technology are ignorant, not dumb... as I said there is a difference. It's ok to be ignorant about something because you can't be expected to know everything, and ignorance can be fixed by learning... but blatantly refusing to read 2 sentences out of sheer laziness, then give up in frustration is DUMB. Also, Construct will eventually have multi language support from the look of things. I'm sure it's not just people that speak english that don't read message boxes...

Captain's suggestion is still the best, though Attan makes a good point by keeping it simple, which you can subliminally read just by trying to click the OK or CANCEL button.

i still think it's better to just tell a user how to solve the problem when it's just a missing file or something with only one solution =P

The truth is, technology scares some people. A lot of people. Computers are complex, and a lot of 'casual' users don't know anything past the basics. The instant they read: "A required DirectX component, 'd3dx_30.dll', was not found." What's a .dll?! Yikes! Cancel. They don't want to screw anything up. For that matter, a lot of people who play casual games and such don't even know what direct X is.

We're developers and most of us have probably been tech-savvy most of our lives, so it's easy to not realize just how nervous the general populace is about computers.

As such, I would recommend close to what Attan suggested, so the box says: "Your version of DirectX is too old, click update to download the newest version." And a button named "More info" with all the technical details.

I'm not sure if 'update' is better than 'OK', but either way that sounds completely harmless and obscures the technical information that might scare them away. They know 'more info' is for advanced users, and that they don't have to know what it is - otherwise it would be displayed in the main message - and they don't need worry about the details.

It also makes the solution seem easier - they don't need to know what a .dll is, they just need to click that update button, which will update direct X - whatever that is - which will let them play. What's more, is it makes it seem safer. "Oh, I already have direct X? Well, updating it isn't any trouble, then."

OK, well I've changed the error message to:

Your DirectX installation appears to be out of date.  Please install the latest version of DirectX by clicking 'OK' in order to run this application.  The required component, 'd3dx_30.dll', was not found.

[OK] [Cancel][/code:80qmsyg9]

We'll see how it works out.

Attan's way of thinking is great, provided there's a significant amount of details to be said. For this specific error, the only detail is the .dll. I'd say in just about any other case, Attan's way will probably be better.

About error messages: Ash, did you ad like easter-egg-error-messages?!? SuperV got one saying "Error: Construct has been updated.", and i just got one saying "Error: You require to open this file" when i was trying to open a file. Are these old error message that you put in long time ago, or do they actually mean something?

"You require to open this file" is actually a bug, it's meant to have a plugin name substituted in, ie. "You require Plugin.csx to open this file". The other one is just a stray caption... I try not to put in silly error messages deliberately since they serve a genuine purpose and could end up really confusing people, but I think somewhere, somehow, there's code that says something about wormholes if things go seriously wrong