Re: ANNOUNCE : HelpViewer 0.1

[Nicolas Roard]

On 2003-01-22 09:02:03 +0100 Andreas Heppel <aheppel@web.de> wrote:

> On 2003-01-21 18:52:05 +0100 ibotty <ibotty@web.de> wrote:
>
> > > Ah !  in fact I was right then .. ;-) you get the whole help file, you're juste
> > > poited to the right section. Quite different than tooltip then
> > sorry, but i understand context sensitive help differently.
> >
> > this kind of help is in my understanding a (huge) tooltip.
> > thats how at least kde and windoze understand it too.
> And that's the way I understand it.

Well that's one way to provide context help ... OPENSTEP fire up the
equivalent of helpviewer and point out the right section, as mentioned
on http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/802-2110/6i63kq4sm?a=view (at least
some versions of OPENSTEP ;-)

> > i think we shouldnt differ from both.

Hmm I disagree... for two raisons : 1) if we choose to implement context
help the same way as OPENSTEP, we could reuse helpviewer and it's
very quick to add ; and 2) I think the OPENSTEP method is more consistent and 
useable, as you could have access on the whole help file on the same occasion 
if needed.
> > i just checked my kde.
> > in kde you have a extra window hint for context help.
> > you just click it, then the view, and it displays a tooltip.
> > (if not in kwin, open e.g. kcontrol and click help->"whats this?" in the menu, 
> > you get the same.)
> In Windoze you have this litle question mark in the title bar (at least it used 
> to be there when I last used it a long time ago :)In my understanding this has 
> the same meaning as this ominous 'Help key'.

Yes.

> This also the way I understand the OpenStep API. In NSHelpManager you have
> - (void) setContextHelp: (NSAttributedString *) help withObject: (id) object
> used to assign one little piece of text to anUI element (or even an otherobject 
> which wouldn't make much sense, though).
> -> Kind of enhanced tooltips.

Well as Jonathan Gapel explained it, the context help system was first provided 
with a huge panel containing the help file, and in OPENSTEP 4.2
they choose to go with a more usual form (as Windows or KDE does, a small panel 
with only the text, sort of big tooltip). But personnally I think the solution
#1 (big panel) is better. We need to choose ;)

> I doubt that this is used much and would prefer one centralized viewer (either 
> HelpViwer or some internal GNUstep tool) bringing me to the requested bit of 
> information. This  also had the advantage that from here I could follow a link 
> to a different topic or open another help file which I can't with the current 
> implementation of contect help (or the way I interpret its API).

Exactly. #1 go !  :-))

--
Nicolas Roard <nicolas@roard.com>
http://info.xdev.org/projets/waiho
the linux philosophy is laugh in the face of danger. Oops. Wrong one. 'Do it 
yourself'. That's it.