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The softWorks -- Help-System

Richard Schwaninger
risc@finwds01.tu-graz.ac.at
english/Help.tex
Version 1.3

28/02/1996

Contents

• 1 General Information
• 2 The Help Menu
• 3 The Help Dialog
• 4 Reading Help Pages

1 General Information

The help system provides online information and documentation while you are using a programm. It may be used as a comprehensive online manual, as a tutorial or as a way to obtain quick help on a specific item.

You may see this as an electronic book that may be read from front to back in the usual manner or that may be used as a quick reference guide. The help window can remain on the screen while you are working. It can be moved and resized so you can see both the help window and your application.

You can interactively exploring the program because you can get information on a topic with the click of the mouse.

2 The Help Menu

To access help you click on the button labeled Help in the top-right corner of the main window. This will popup a menu containing the following items:

About

  this will give you information about the program itself. It will display the programs name and version number.

Documentation

  contains the complete online manual. You may read this like a book.

Reference

this will bring up the part of the documentation that describes your current task.

Item Help

gives you information on a specific button or entry field. If you select this menubutton then the cursor shape will change to a question mark. Click on an item of the program and the corresponding help text will be displayed. If no specific help is available then the closest topic will be shown.

Help on Help

is what you are currenlty reading. If you need even more help then you are out of luck.

3 The Help Dialog

This is the window that displays all the help text. You may navigate through the text and may print specific portions of it.

The bar on the top of the text is for fast navigation between help pages. You may go back to the last theme or may select an item from a list of already read topics.

If you like to read the text in paper form you may print selected topics.

This is a short description of the expressbar:

Back

returns to the previous page. You may go back through all the already read pages.

Next

shows the next page. This is only possible if you have gone back or have used the bookmark navigation before.

Home

goes to the document shown first.

Bookark

You get a list with all the pages you have already read. You may select a page by clicking on it and then pressing the Ok or Apply button.

Print

The current page will be printed. Note that you have to install a printer driver that is capable of printing HTML-documents.

If you want to print high-quality documentation then you may use the postscript-files located in the doc subdirectory.

Close

removes the help windows and makes space for the main program.

4 Reading Help Pages

The help pages are interactive documents. You can click on active elements (eg. entries in the table of contents) and jump to the corresponding text. Use this feature to navigate inside a lengthy document.