The way you present a HelpSet to users can be as important as the help content itself. If users have a hard time accessing the help system, they might become reluctant to use it. The main presentation options for a HelpSet are standalone help, context-sensitive help (screen-level or field-level), and embedded help.
A standalone HelpSet is one that the user views independently of an application. When the user calls for help (either while running the application or at another time), the HelpSet Viewer appears with an overview topic in the content pane. From this initial point, users must navigate through the help system to find the topics in which they are interested. Navigation controls are very important to a standalone HelpSet, because they are the only means the user has to access detailed information.
The Aviation HelpSet used in this book is an example of a standalone HelpSet. You launch it manually and then navigate through the HelpSet’s topics. A straightforward alternative is to have an application launch a standalone HelpSet when the user invokes the application’s help command.
Standalone HelpSets are sufficient for supporting an application, but what if you want to provide a friendlier help system to your users? You might want to provide help through context-sensitivity. Context-sensitivity simply means that the help system displays a help topic specific to the given situation at the time the user requests help. There are two types of context-sensitive help, both are available with JavaHelp. The first type is called screen-level help. With screen-level context-sensitive help, the user is working in a particular application screen that has a button to activate help. When the user clicks that button, the help system starts and displays the specific help topic for the active screen. The user can also navigate through the help system to view other topics.
The second type of context-sensitive help is called field-level help (also known as What’s This help). This type of help is integrated with the application’s interface. Users typically activate a mechanism (for example, clicking a button with a question mark) and then point to or click a control in the active window. The help system then displays a help topic that describes the selected control.
Some help systems use a simple pop-up window for field-level help to save screen space. With JavaHelp, invoking field-level help launches the full HelpSet Viewer and displays the topic for that particular control. Although this method takes up more screen space and operating-system resources, it offers users an easy way to access related topics.
Another way to increase user-friendliness is with embedded help. Embedded help is similar to context-sensitive help in that it displays the help topic associated with the current condition of the application. The difference is that embedded help is built into the interface so that the user sees it all the time. As the user switches to different windows or controls, the help remains visible, but the active topic changes to reflect the changes in the application’s condition.
In general, embedded help does not necessarily look like a traditional help system. Help can come in the form of icons, tips, numbered arrows, or any visual device built into the application’s interface. With JavaHelp, however, embedded help is more limited: it is visual JavaHelp components (content pane, navigation pane) built directly into a Java application’s user interface.
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