User Help Screens

[johncrane]

I want to create user help screens that can be accessed by just clicking on a button in the layout. That's the easy part. Each layout will contain a unique Help button. The Help screen will contain a combination of text and graphics so I will be using Container Fields. The Help information will be created in Word or a AppleWorks and will be a graphic.

I have an approach in mind but I am looking for any suggestions before I go to all of the work that my solution will require.

I am willing to share my solution so if you have any ideas or have done User Help screens before I would appreciate any suggestions.

The solution will need to work in a server environment.

[LiveOak]

Hi John!

We were discussing this topic yesterday. One approach is to create a single file to be shared by all your files and used to store all the help screens.

Another clever idea came from our administrator Kurt Knipple at Database Resources. Use a global field to title each real field on a layout, rather than using a text field name. In the global fields type the field name information, put a couple of carriage returns, then type in the help information. Size the global title field down until only the field name part shows. If the user needs help, they click on the field name (actually clicking into the global field) and the entire contents of the global field becomes visible.

-bd

[Vaughan]

Good suggestion, thanks for sharing it.

[johncrane]

My planned approach is to use my Main file which contains the Main Menu's and is also used for security login's as a storage spot for the help graphics. We want graphics so that the user will see examples of screens and the corresponding help text. In the Main database there will be a regular container field for each help button that is on all layouts for all of the databases in the solution. All of these container fields will all be stored in one record. In each database there will be a global Container field for each Help button that is on any layout in that database. So in the Main database for each regular container field there is a corresponding global container field in one of the other databases. When a user logs in as part of the login script the contents of the regular container fields will be transfered to the global container fields in the other databases by using set commands. All databases are linked together by a single Link Relationship so that the global fields can be set. This way every time some one logs in the global container fields in all of the databases will have the current help data from the Main file. The system administrator has access to the main file and can update the help graphics at any time.

I like your suggestion for help for individual fields and will use it for some of the fields.