Online Help, ContextSensitive

1
Online Help, Context-Sensitive

• Good for finding out a screen component is or
  does, checking the field-edit rules
• not good for how-to, background/overview
  information
• Guidelines
• do not rely too heavily on context-sensitive help
• cannot link to on-line help windows
• users need at least three types descriptive,
  procedural and background, Most help is
  procedural
• some items do not need any help
• when? Less often than we might think, use label,
  tooltip, status bar to replace help

2
Online Help, Context-Sensitive (II)

• Accessing
• on Windows, F1
• most go to the help menu and use the search
  option
• Usability
• See if users try to use, if do, first determine
  whether the interface needs to be fixed
• See how users access help
• Do users get what they expect?
• Use a talk-aloud protocol to find out what domain
  questions users have, include them in the online
  help

3
Online Help, Procedural

• Good for quickly learning a procedure
• Guidelines
• in Win95, often appears in secondary help windows
• size of panel contains only as much information
  as fits on an index card, users read only as much
  as needed to do the next step
• Usability tests
• use talk-aloud protocol

4
Online Help, Reference

• Often the paper documentation in electronic form
• finding out what is going on behind the scenes
• accessing technical info quickly
• Guidelines
• a backup for printed documentation
• search the entire text for answers to questions
• always handy
• put online what is done online, on paper what is
  off-line
• e.g., detailed domain info

5
On-line Help

• HelpFile (hlp or chm)
• App object or ????
• HelpContextID
• if set, the topic file with the id will be
  displayed
• if not, the containers HelpContextID is used
• can be set in code
• Whats This
• set the forms WHatsThisHelp to true
• set the controls WhatsThisHelpID to the proper id

6
Help Menu

• Use ShowHelp in Common Dialog Control
• set HelpFile
• set HelpCommand to cdlHelpContents
• call ShowHelp to show the help windown
• To show a particular topic
• set HelpCommand to cdlHelpContext
• set HelpContext to the proper id
• call ShowHelp

7
Constructing a help System

• In the New Topic Wizard, choose the category
  "book." Scroll through the templates in the
  category and select "Table of Contents" to begin
  your project.
• Customize the Template
• To add a link to the Table of Contents
• click on the window to bring it to the front
• choose the image link tool from the Object
  Toolbox and drag it into the Table of Contents
  window

8
Creating Your First Help File

• Create a New Topic
• Under the file menu, choose "New Topic.
• Add Items from the Toolbox to Contents
• Choose the Title icon from the toolbox and drag
  it into the topic window.
• Do the same with the heading and subheading
  objects.
• Next add three of the "bulleted list item"
  objects.
• Edit the Topic
• Save The Topic

9
Create a Second Topic

• clicking on the file menu and choosing the New
  Topic Wizard button on the toolbar.
• Choose a Topic Template
• choose the category "book" Scroll through the
  templates in the category and select "preface.
• Customize the Preface
• Highlight the word Preface and type "Why I like
  Soup" and type your name where you see the word
  "author.
• Save the Project

10
Add and Move Paragraphs

• Add an additional paragraph below the first
  subhead by dragging the paragraph icon from the
  toolbox and dropping it below the first paragraph
• Now move the paragraph you just added to below
  the second subheading by clicking along the left
  edge of the text and dragging the text.
• Add an Image
• From the object toolbox, click and drag the image
  icon, Double click on the image icon to see the
  image source dialog box.

11
Add a Link

• first click on that window to bring it to the
  front
• choose the link tool from the Object Toolbox and
  drag it into the topic window, just below the
  title.
• Highlight the link and rename it "Preface."
• Click on the action icon in the tool bar of the
  Contents window.
• User can quickly go from one topic to a related
  topic by clicking on a link. Users can easily
  spot links because they underlined, and appear in
  a specific color.

12
Build and Run the Project

• Save your project again. From the Run menu,
  choose "Build and Run
• Accept the defaults in the Build Wizard dialog.
• Test the Links

13
The Image Link and Text

• Highlight the text to the right of the image and
  type "Introduction."
• While the text is highlighted, choose the image
  alignment icon from the top.
• Click on the action icon in the tool bar of the
  Table of Contents window.
• The dialog box will appear