Thursday, October 20, 2011

What is context-sensitive help?


A help topic or a set of help topics that can be showed to the user on request is called a Context Sensitive Help. This form of help is delivered to the user usually on the click on F1 or a click on the help icon.

There are two forms of context sensitive help:

Field- Level context sensitive help

When you click on any object (button, field and so on), related information is displayed in a window or a popup. Usually the help is a short paragraph or bulleted points that explain the object.

Dialog-Level context sensitive help

A window is displayed. The help explains all the objects in the screen. A design with table of contents is usually displayed on the left hand side of the screen.

How does it work?

A help file is linked to the application using a Map ID and this is a number. The map IDs can either be supplied by the Software Developer or the Technical Writer.

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