Some of the dialogs like this one could be much less enigmatic to users if there was a small button with a question mark opening a window with a very brief description (like 3-5 sentences*) of what it can be expected to do.
Right. Like 'Orbital rendering - renders thing from orbit' - you have to admit that the name is fairly descriptive
More seriously - sure, the list of things that could be done is endless... My day has only 24 hours - so I develop a feature, roll it out, write about it in the newsletter, announce it in the forum and in the mailing list, take bug reports, answer to feature requests...
I could in addition also make a wiki page, announce it on Facebook, write a README.earthview documentation for the Docs folder, change the GUI, add procedurally generated fake details for the planet shader, make a canvas GUI - all these things would be nice.
I just decided that it stops somewhere because I also want to do other things. So if you feel the GUI could be improved, don't tell me because that won't do anything, send me the patch for review
Sorry, I had no way of really knowing.
Except reading the forum thread, the newsletter, the Flightgear webpage, the mailing list ... it's not like I just added the feature without giving any information. So please be fair - theoretically there were many channels containing the information.
Here is the place to ask questions
Precisely so - but the thread starter hasn't asked a question but made a statement. These you should only make if you understand something.
Personally I think stating 'X is broken' in public is the equivalent of ringing an alarm bell - it pretty much forces the maintainer to react to your post. And as with a real alarm bell, you should only ring it if there's really a fire for obvious reasons.