Re: Win95 Help vs WinHelp

[Gwen Barnes <gwen -dot- barnes -at- MUSTANG -dot- COM>]

-> Our developers, however, are having a miserable time trying to
-> get the pop-ups hooked up because MS hasn't made VC++ compatible
-> with Help 4.0 yet.

Glad we're not the only ones encountering this situation. Some ingenuity
and a lot of work from our engineers has allowed us to hook it up, but
it is not yet automatic.

-> Major difference #5 -- you can specify the window in which a
-> help topic appears within the topic definition, so you don't
-> have to manipulate the jumps to get the topic into a secondary
-> window.

My favorite feature to date. I've defined a fake "main window" that
resizes automatically to the amount of text in the topic, and forced it
everywhere it would otherwise go into a regular main window. And made
liberal use of the secondary windows. Nice feature!

-> #10 -- MS goes minimalist!  Usability studies indicated that
-> users were hesitant to read procedural topics longer than
-> about 4 steps, so MS responded by eliminating intro material
-> and redundant or obvious steps (like the infamous "Click OK").

Now that has its pros and cons, depending on the audience's perception
of themselves as technical or non-technical. I've been over all that
quite recently so I won't reiterate ... minimize at your peril, and only
after understanding what your users *want*, whether or not that's what
they really *need*.

Cheers,                                                 @DISCLAIMER@
Gwen                                         gwen -dot- barnes -at- mustang -dot- com
http://www.mustang.com                         ftp://ftp.mustang.com
MSI * Connecting the world                              805-873-2500