Re: [lmi] "Help" button really does do something

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 13:43:34 +0000 Greg Chicares <address@hidden> wrote:

GC> We have a certain amount of help content, and various past, current,
GC> or possible future mechanisms for delivering it.
GC> 
GC> The content consists of two parts:
GC> (1) this number:
GC>   $wc --lines [a-z]*.html 
GC>   1832 total
GC> of lines in webpages (of which many are blank or comments); and
GC> (2) this number:
GC>   $grep help *.xrc | wc --lines 
GC>   832
GC> of lines of help text in XRC files. Beyond that,
GC> (3) we do not contemplate adding any third category of content.
GC> 
GC> The "Help" pushbuttons in XRC files today provide (1), which is
GC> so un-useful in their context that we should either delete them,
GC> or make them do the reasonable thing, which is to provide (2).
GC> 
GC> I think the decision tree is:
GC> 
GC> Is (2) accessible to native msw end users through any mechanism?

 Yes.

GC> Right-click a control and pick a "Help" option on a pop-up menu?

 No. I think this was done by MSW itself in some (very) old versions, but
it's not done by default since many, many years (if it ever was, I'm not
even 100% sure about it). We could show such menu ourselves, but its
discoverability would be abysmal.

GC> Click a "?" titlebar button (not the pushbutton), then click a
GC> control?

 Yes, this works. The trouble is that it's not very discoverable neither.

GC> Hover the mouse over a control?

 No, because this would show a tooltip -- if it were defined, but it isn't
(the only tooltips we define are for toolbar buttons).

GC> Should we nevertheless retain the "Help" pushbuttons just in
GC> case we write a whole new category of help text (3)? When?
GC> In the year 2525--if we are still alive--if users can survive?
GC> No. Not gonna happen.

 Probably not, but it's a pity because, as a user, I think it's
intimidating to be confronted with this dialog and it would be nice if the
"Help" button opened some (new, so (3), but not quite, because it would be
part of (1)) new_illustration.html file which briefly explained what are
the most important options to change and, maybe, also told people to use
the "?" button in the title bar on various controls as, again, I'm not sure
how many of users are actually aware of its existence right now.

 Regards,
VZ