The Programmer's Job

The programmer adds code to an application so that when a user requests context-sensitive help, the application displays help information that is relevant to what the application is doing at that time.




	Example Program: The `/usr/vhelp/examples/helpdemo/` directory contains the source code for a sample program called `helpdemo`. It demonstrates how to add help dialogs to an OSF/Motif application.

Consider how your help is accessed

Providing useful information to the user requires taking into account:

What confusions commonly arise? Specific help in these situations can save users lots of time.
Why is the user asking for help now instead of earlier or later? If there are several steps in a process and the user is not at the first step, branch to information that is specific to the step being done. This is more helpful than displaying the same information at each step. If the user is at the first step, make available both detailed information about the first step and an overview of all the steps.
Is the user requesting context-specific help or just browsing the help information? If it is context-specific, supply information that's relevant to the task now being done.

Collaborate with the help author

Close collaboration with the online help author is needed because the author needs to know how each context-specific topic is reached and the programmer needs to know what is explained in each context-specific topic. Without such coordination, the user may see irrelevant, ambiguous, or misleading information.

Collaboration makes the best use of the programmer's understanding of the application and the author's understanding of how to best communicate relevant information to the user.

Create and manage help dialogs

HP Help is designed especially for use with OSF/Motif applications. Specifically, HP Help extends the OSF/Motif widget set by providing two new widget classes (plus convenience functions to manipulate them):

The quick help dialog, which provides a simple help window with a topic display area and a few dialog buttons.
The general help dialog, which provides a help window that includes a menu bar and a topic hierarchy in addition to the help topic display area.

You can use either or both of these types of help windows within your application. Once the application is compiled (with the HP Help library), the help windows become part of the application.

The Programmer's Job

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Consider how your help is accessed

Collaborate with the help author

Create and manage help dialogs