Digital Workshop

Hello,
I am working up an idea for a new form of tutorial or help system for a desktop application.

This is how it would work:

The Opus pub would sit "always on top" of the desktop application. As the user reads the isntructions, he performs the tasks in the application.

What I would like to do is include a button on the Opus pub that, when pressed, will display the existing context sensitive help for a particular button/field on the desktop application. The reason I want to do this is that I do not want to include screenshots, but wish to aid the user in locating the certain field/button should he/she need assistance.

If I have access to the desktop application's source code, is that possible?

Thanks,
Mike

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to achieve? the user would normally just press the F1 key to get context sensitive help, so why not prompt them to press that?

The bit I don't understand is


do you want to mirror all the buttons in opus?? or is it one button in opus?

My experience of help files is that they normally explain great detail of what something does, but never how to actually do it, or what buttons to press....which drives me insane .


It seems that windows help files are Help.chm compiled help files.
Does the application have a CHM file??. You could launch this from Opus by attaching a launch action to the button, however this would not be context sensitive.,
There may be a way of adding parameters to the launch command to make it context sensitive, but this still doesn't help, because Opus doesn't know the context at the time.

The CHM files can be de-compiled, but not always successfully, so you perhaps could have a text version of the help which Opus could use.

what you are trying to do is get opus and the application to talk to one another and this is difficult to do.

You need to know how the application flags the context in order to launch the appropriate help. I imagine this will be internal to the application and I can't think of any way of doing that. Do you have the capability to have the application changed? you could have a registry entry set to show the context at the time, then use the de-compiled help file.............which seems to be a lot of work..... when all the user has to do is press the F1 key.

I just see what you are trying to do is going to be such a lot of work, when the facility already exists in the application?

Does the application use a DLL for help???

a very interesting challenge !!

Have a look here http://www.mischel.com/winhelp/guide.html
perhaps you can find how to start a help file in context mode---which could be added to the Opus launch file parameters??
Sandy

Hi sandyn,
I can see why people might be confused in reference to my reasoning for doing this. It's all very complicated and mainly has to do with finding a way to helping the user locate the specified field on forms with sometimes up to 50 fields. I won't go into further details, becaus eit would probably bore you.

I did however uncover an alternate way to do this, so I will be doing that.

Thanks very much for you answer and the info you provided!

Mike

OK. I understand.....I would have tried overlaying the application with a separate Opus Pub(highlighter), but transparent, so you could highlight the field. Two opus pubs running. One would be the tutorial, the other the 'highlighter'
In order for this to work, you would have to read the registry value for the main application for the display position and size.......or get the user to run it full screen, then you could map the highlighter to the main application..............well--that's the theory I'm not sure if an application's display information is stored in the registry when you move the window, or just when it shuts down...so it may not work.

What you are trying to do is an interesting idea, so...how did you do it??



Sandy

Thanks very much for the suggestion!

My solutions was actually almost exactly like you suggested. I use one chapter for the "instruction card" pages and another chapter as the transparent screen (opening in a new full screen window). The transparent page has an arrow icon that moves to a certain place on the screen depending on the variable value that is passed to it. For instance, if the instruction card reads "Click the SAVE button", clicking the "Find" button would:

(1) Set the variable "Find" to the text "save"
(2) Make the pub go to the Transparent page, which has an onshow action for each value that variable could have. The onshow action would move the arrow to a certain place on screen depending on the variable's current value. It stays there for 2 seconds and closes the window.

This works perfectly, except I have to change the user's desktop resolution in order to have the arrow end up in the right place every time. What I will do is allow the user to decide if he wants the resolution changed, knowing that if he doesn't, the field/button finder will be disabled.

Thanks again,
Mike

Or you could use a Help development tool since that's what it is there for

Seriously, using a Help development tool such as RoboHelp, you can create your context-sensitive Help very easily and it will be called based on the field people are at with the F1 key. I believe just about any Help authoring tool would be able to do this without problem. Some of them even have facilities to create cue card help which walks the user through a series of steps and "checks" to see if they are working through the steps. Might be worth a look if you will be doing stuff like this going forward. Not sure of the cost, but as a I say, if you'll be doing this stuff more than once, it might justify the initial cost.

Thanks for the tip, but a help authoring tool won't do the task I want to do. I don't want to create screenshots, and yet I still want the user to be able to see where the button/field is with which he needs to interact. That's why help authoring software won't help; it can't point out on the application itself where the field/button is. I used to use RoboHelp. It won't do it. I have spent hours researching EPSS and performance support tools, and have found only two authoring tools that integrate with applications in such a "tutorial" sort of way, and they are each over $3000.

The reason it is so important that the location of the field/button be indicated is because the software I am documenting often involves procedures more complex than just filling out this field, followed by that one, etc. Some of the windows can be very overwhelming as far as number and locations of fields is concerned.

The idea I presented in this thread, of using Opus to display context senitive help, was just a way to have the button/field be identified automatically so that the user would see where the button is, and wouldn't have to go searching around for it. I like the transparent screen idea that Sandyn and I had much better than my original context sensitive idea.

That's not to say I don't appreciate your input and suggestions, because I very much do.

Thanks,
Mike