DYNAMIC HELP INFORMATION

• US 20110131491A1
• Filed: 11/29/2010
• Published: 06/02/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lu, Xu Qing, Qi, Yao, Shen, Xing Xing, Tang, Chuang
• Granted Patent: US 9,026,910 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/708
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/382 using citations hypermedia G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04812 Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04895 Guidance during keyboard input operation, e.g. prompting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

Dynamic help information is provided by receiving unit, configured to receive at least one operation of a user and to obtain the user'"'"'s operation history, where the operation history includes at least one operation; a determining unit, configured to determine the corresponding help information according to the user'"'"'s operation history; and an information obtaining unit, configured to obtain said corresponding help information. Assistance in providing help information is also provided, comprising: an operation capturing unit, configured to capture and send at least one operation of a user; and an information displaying unit, configured to receive and display the help information corresponding to the user'"'"'s operation history, where the operation history includes at least one operation. With the apparatuses and method of this invention, the pertinent help information can be dynamically provided for users according to user'"'"'s operation history.

Claims

1. An apparatus for providing help information, comprising:

a microprocessor coupled to a memory, wherein the microprocessor is programmed to obtain dynamic help to covey to a user of a software application, independent of the code of the software application, by implementing;

a receiving unit that receives at least one operation of a user and obtains an operation history associated with the user, wherein said operation history includes said at least one operation;

a determining unit that determines appropriate help information based upon the obtained operation history; and

an information obtaining unit that obtains said help information from a help repository that stores help information associated with the software application.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

said operation history comprises a current user status, and

said determining unit analyzes the current user status according to the operation history, and determines the corresponding help information according to said user status.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein said determining unit maintains a mapping table, which stores the correspondence between each user status and the help information, and said determining unit determines the corresponding help information by referring to said mapping table.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein said help information is stored by indexes or pointers in said mapping table.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said help repository comprises a help information storage apparatus, said information obtaining unit retrieves the corresponding help information from the help information storage apparatus and communicates the corresponding help information back to a client that requested the help information.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said help information contains description text and displaying information that is related to displaying the obtained help information and said displaying information contains displaying parameters, a pre-defined DIV library and a pre-defined JavaScript library.

7. An apparatus for assisting in providing help information, comprising:

a microprocessor coupled to a memory, wherein the microprocessor is programmed to obtain and display dynamic help, which is conveyed to a user of a software application, by implementing;

an operation capturing unit that captures and sends at least one operation of a user to an analyzer to request help information, where the analyzer is independent of the software application code operated by a user; and

an information displaying unit that receives and displays help information received from the analyzer, where the received help information is determined based upon an operation history associated with the user, wherein said operation history includes said at least one operation of the user interacting with the software application.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein said operation capturing unit captures said at least one operation by catching at least one of:

mouse clicking, mouse dragging and keyboard inputting, performed by the user.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein said operation capturing unit further records a plurality of operations of the user to form the operation history.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein said operation capturing unit further sends said operation history the analyzer for analysis to determine appropriate help information.

11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein said help information contains description text and displaying information, and said information displaying unit displays said help information by inserting the code related to said displaying information into the source code of the current page.

12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein said apparatus is a browser plug-in.

13. A method for providing help information to a user, comprising:

receiving at least one operation of a user interacting with a software application and obtaining an operation history associated with the user, wherein said operation history includes said at least one operation;

determining appropriate help information based upon the operation history independently of code executing the software application operated by the user; and

obtaining said help information from a help repository that stores help information associated with the software application, wherein the help information is provided to the user for display associated with the software application.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said determining the corresponding help information comprises:

analyzing the current user status according to the user'"'"'s operation history and determining the corresponding help information according to said user status.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said determining the corresponding help information according to user status comprises referring to a mapping table to determine the corresponding help information, said mapping table storing the correspondence between each user status and the help information, and said determining unit determining the corresponding help information by referring to said mapping table.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising storing said help information by indexes or pointers in said mapping table.

17. The method according to claim 13, wherein obtaining said help information comprises retrieving the help information from a help information storage apparatus of said help repository and communicating the corresponding help information back to a client that requested the help information.

18. The method according to claim 13, wherein said help information comprises description text and displaying information that is related to displaying the obtained help information and said displaying information contains displaying parameters, a pre-defined DIV library and a pre-defined JavaScript library.

19. A method for assisting in providing help information, comprising:

capturing and sending at least one operation of a user to an analyzer, where the analyzer is independent of code executing a software application operated by the user, to request help information associated with an interaction between the user and the software application; and

receiving and displaying the help information received from the analyzer, where the received help information corresponds to an operation history associated with the user, wherein said operation history includes said at least one operation of the user interacting with the software application.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein said at least one operation is captured by catching at least one of mouse clicking, mouse dragging and keyboard inputting performed by the user.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein said help information contains description text and displaying information, the step of displaying said help information comprises:

displaying said help information by inserting the code related to said displaying information into the source code of the current page.

22. The method of claim 19, further comprising recording a plurality of operations of the user to form the operation history.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising sending said operation history the analyzer for analysis to determine appropriate help information.