Help Menu

OpenOffice.org 2.0

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Matthias Müller-Prove	10/16/08	final
Conforms to	
Applies to	all modules
Task ID(s)	i29822 118595 (StarOffice Beta Support Forum) StarOffice 8 PU 3 Menu item “Online Update” for StarOffice 8 product update 3 task id?? OOoLater i53114 (Help Agent to be removed or redesigned) i53115 (Shift-F1 should work with menus as well)
Category	feature

Abstract

The Help menu makes is easier to access the Help by using better terms and moving the toggle menu items for the Help Agent and the Help Tips to the General options panel.

i-Team Members

	Name	E-mail Address
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove /MMP	mprove@sun.com,
Development	Peter Burow /PB	Hans-Peter.Burow@Sun.COM
Quality Assurance	Stefan Baltzer /SBA	stefan.baltzer@sun.com,
Documentation	Derek Dreger /DD	derek.dreger@sun.com
		mail to iTeam

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove	03.06.04
Development	Hans-Peter Burow	03.06.04
Quality Assurance	Stefan Baltzer	10.06.04
Documentation	Derek Dreger	03.06.04
String Review	Elizabeth Matthis	15.06.04

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
	created document	MMP	12/10/03
	UFI-1	UFI	
	ready for appoval	MMP	6/2/04
	added "What's this?" to Help menu.	MMP	6/3/04
1.0	final version	MMP	6/23/04
	no Tutorials for StarOffice 8	MMP	7/20/04
	6.2 Options for Help Agent and Tool Tips:added Tips option to Options panel to allow the complete disabling of Tool Tips (HI&SBA-1) 6.4 Timing of Tool Tips: increase the duration until tool tips show up.	MMP	7/27/04
	update for Tool Tip duration: wait 0.5 sec until display	MMP	7/28/04
	update of Abstract	MMP	8/3/04
	added menu item for StarOffice Beta Support Forum (row 69. 76)	MMP	11/25/04
	Added menu item for Purchasing StarOffice (internal feature)	BH	11/26/04
2.0.3	Menu item “Check for Updates” for OOo 2.0.3, StarOffice 8 product update 3 (row70)	MMP	Apr 7, 2006
3.1	Remove What's This Item.	FL	Oct. 16, 2008

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	User Scenarios	1

3	Goals	1

4	Requirements and Dependencies	1

4.1	Requirements	1

4.2	Technical Dependencies	1

5	Competitive Analyses	2

5.1	StarOffice 7	2

5.1.1	Help Menu	2

5.1.2	Tool Tips	2

5.1.3	Extended Tips	2

5.2	MS Word	3

5.2.1	Help Menu	3

5.2.2	Office Assistant	3

5.2.3	Tips	3

5.2.4	Extended Tips	3

6	Detailed Specification	4

6.1	Help Menu	4

6.2	Options for Help Agent and Tool Tips	5

6.3	Extended Tool Tip Mode	6

6.4	Timing of Tool Tips	6

7	Future Tasks	6

7.0.1	i53114	6

7.0.2	i53115	6

8	Notes	6

8.0.1	Addressed Issues	6

9	References	7

Glossary

Term	Description
Help Agent	The Help Agent starts automatically when the user is performing a task that might require some assistance. The Help Agent appears in a small window in a corner of the document. To view the help for the task, the user has to click inside the Help Agent window.

Motivation

Usability studies have revealed that far too many user are unable to successfully consult the online help. This is mainly caused by the Help menu itself. The toggle menu items Help Agent draws the attention of the user.

User Scenarios

Peter runs into a problem and decides to consult the online help. The Help menu is easily located, and he clicks on “Help Agent” to ask a question to the agent. Nothing happens. He tries again without any effect.

Explanation is that “Help Agent” is just a toggle menu item to enable or disable the Help Agent in general. It does not open the Help Agent. Anyway OOo's Help Agent is not capable of answering questions.

Goals

OOo should meet the user's expectation to open the help window on demand. Distraction of other options in the Help menu should be minimized.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

<State the requirement(s) of this feature here.>

Technical Dependencies

If the display of Tool Tips is switched off in OOo 1.1 then notes are not displayed either. The user probably will not see any connection between these two. [FPE]

Competitive Analyses

StarOffice 7

Help Menu

Illustration 5.1 StarOffice 7 Help Menu

The Help window is triggered by the menu item “Contents”. F1 opens the help window as well, though the shortcut is not displayed in the menu.

The toggle menu items (Help Agent, Tips and Extended Tips) cause severe problems for users. Especially the “Help Agent” draws the attention, but does not open the help window – as expected.

Tool Tips

Tool tips can have three states: off, on, and extended.

Extended Tips

In OpenOffice.org, there are three ways to use the Extended Tips:

Mark the menu item “Extended Tips”. This enables extended tips that show up on hovering of GUI elements.

Press Shift+F1, move the mouse pointer to any UI item that you want more info for. This mode is active till the next click. The click is taken as a real click for the application.

MS Word

Help Menu

Illustration 5.2 MS Word 2002 Help Menu Illustration 5.3 MS Word 2003 Help Menu

The first menu item opens the online help of MS Word. An icon stresses the importance of this item.

Office Assistant

“Show the Office Assistant” opens the Office Assistant. Users can click it and formulate a free-form question.

Illustration 5.4 MS Office Assistant

The menu item toggles to “Hide the Office Assistant”.

Tips

Tool Tips cannot be disabled in MS Office.

Extended Tips

In MS Office 2002, there are three ways to use the "What's This?" command:

Choose Help - What's This?, move the mouse pointer to the UI item that you want more info for, and then click.

Press Shift+F1, move the mouse pointer to the UI item that you want more info for, and then click.

This feature is no longer present in MS Office 2003. Here, Shift-F1 opens the task panel.

Detailed Specification

Help Menu

Illustration 6.1 Help menu

The Help menu for all OOo 2.0 modules is as follows (changes to OOo 1.1 are marked green):

Help

OpenOffice.org Help	F1	: opens OpenOffice.org Help

What's This?	Shift+F1	: activates the extended tool tip mode

---------------

Support	: opens online help on page “Getting Support”

Beta Support Forum...	: opens the web page http://www.support-central.de/betaforum

Registration...	: opens web browser ? SO only?

---------------	: MMP 2-Jan-2006: Do we want this divider?

Check for Updates...	: since OOo 2.0.3 (spec)

Purchase StarOffice...	: opens the Purchase StarOffice Wizard (StarOffice only; not in OOo)

---------------

About OpenOffice.org	: opens About dialog

The help menu item icons is now placed on the first menu item “OpenOffice.org” -- instead of the Help Agent (as in OOo1.1). The keyboard shortcut F1 is visible in the menu.

During the beta test of StarOffice the menu item “Support” is replaced by the menu item “Beta Support Forum...”. In StarOffice this item directly opens the web page http://www.support-central.de/betaforum. In OpenOffice.org this item still calls the support page of OOo Help.

The new menu item “Purchase StarOffice...” is described in the specification “Unlocking Evalversion to Fullversion” as internal feature on http://so-doc.germany.sun.com/Projects/StarOffice/SO_Q/FSD/Ease_of_Use/Eval_Full_Version/Unlocking_Evalversion_as_Fullversion.sxw.

String list

Item	English	German	Comments
menu item	%PRODUCTNAME ~Help	%PRODUCTNAME ~Hilfe	was menu item “Contents” in OOo1.1
menu item	What's ~This?	~Direkthilfe	
Menu label	~Purchase %PRODUCTNAME...	%PRODUCTNAME ~kaufen...	The Help Menu gets a further entry.
menu item	~About %PRODUCTNAME	~Info über %PRODUCTNAME	was “About %PRODUCTNAME...” in OOo1.1
menu item	Beta Support Forum...	n/a	will not be translated

Options for Help Agent and Tool Tips

“Help Agent”, “Tips”, and “Extended Tips” are no longer part of the Help menu.

Instead the settings move to the option panel Application>General:

Illustration 6.2 OpenOffice.org>General option panel

“Tips” is a check box to generally enable/disable standard tool tips. The default value is ON.

“Extended Tips” is a check box to generally enable extended tips. This control is enabled if “Tips” is marked. It is deselected and disabled if Tips is not marked. The default value is OFF.

“Display Duration” for the Help Agent is no longer part of the options panel. The value of 30 seconds cannot be changed by the user.

String list

Item	English	German	Comments
static	Help	Hilfe	
control	~Tipps	Tipps	##MMP>EM: new string. Please update your records.
control	~Extended tips	Erweiterte Tipps	
control	~Help Agent	Help Agent	
button label	~Reset Help Agent	Help Agent zurücksetzen	
static	Help ~formatting	Formatierung der Hilfe	

Extended Tool Tip Mode

By pressing Shift-F1 or choosing the menu item “What's This?” the extended Tool Tip Mode is enabled. From now on, for all UI items the mouse hovers over, the extended help tip is displayed. The mode is terminated with the next mouse click. If the click is to an item that has an extended help tip then this click is not interpreted as a real click to activate the function.

Compared to OOo1.1 this is just a different handling for the last mouse click.

Note, if the extended mode is active the the What's This functions add no extra information.

Timing of Tool Tips

The duration until a tool tip is displayed are 2 constant values. One for standard tool tips, and the other for extended tool tips.

OOo 2.0 uses 0.5 sec and 1 sec. By waiting longer for standard tool tips than in OOo 1.1.2 we improve the “feel” of the feature and remove the likeliness that tool tips get in the way of the task the user is currently working on.

	normal tip help duration	extended help tip duration	Comments
MS Windows	0.5 sec		e.g. at Start menu
MS Office	0.5 - 1 sec		
Gnome	0.5 sec		
StarOffice 7, OpenOffice.org 1.1	0.5 sec	1.5 sec	
StarOffice 7pp2, OpenOffice.org 1.1.2	0.2 sec	1 sec	Task 112193
StarOffice 8, OpenOffice.org 2.0	0.5 sec	1 sec	Task i32164

Future Tasks

i53114

Help Agent to be removed or redesigned in future versions.

i53115

Shift-F1 should work with menus as well.

Notes

MMP-6: OOo Add-Ons might enter items to the Help menu. A new section between Registration and About is the location to go.

Addressed Issues

HI&SBA-1: Concerns that users will request the “feature” to disable the Tool Tips entirely.

MMP-1: icon for OOo Help

moved from Help Agent to main Help menu item.

MMP-3: Move toggle menu items to Tools>Option>General

MMP-5: Timing Issues of Tool Tips. The competition uses about 1 sec, while OOo used about ¼ sec.

UFI-1: Make “Use extended help tips” default

MMP: No, standard tool tips will remain the default.

References

[Start Module]	Start Module, Spec for OOo1.1.1 and OOo2.0. http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/start_module/StartModule.sxw

[MSDN Help Menu]	http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch13c.asp

Help Menu

Page 7

http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/menus/HelpMenu.sxw

Matthias Müller-Prove

2003-11-27T14:14:20

Frank Loehmann

Matthias Müller-Prove