Help provision in a data processing system

• US 5,122,972 A
• Filed: 03/20/1990
• Issued: 06/16/1992
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/1988
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Williams, Kenneth, Richards, Justin J. C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Clark, David L.
• Application Number:
  US07/469,549
• Time in Patent Office: 819 Days
• Field of Search: 364/518, 364/521, 364/146, 364/188, 364/200 MS File, 364/900 MS File, 340/721, 340/734
• US Class Current: 715/712
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

Help is provided to the user of a data processing system having a work station, including a display, and input means including a visible on-screen indicator and a selection means, in response to a request from the user, information on the current state of the system is used to address a store of hierarchical help text information, thereby providing contextual help text which is displayed in a separate window on the display screen alongside information related to the task in hand. A help map function is available which displays concurrently, separately from the help text, a portion of a hierarchical map of the stored help text to be replaced by new help text corresponding to the selected map entry.

Claims

1. A data processing system having a workstation, comprising:

a display for displaying on a screen panels of information relating to one or more tasks, the panels being viewable through windows under the control of a display manager, and

operator input means by which an operator can communicate with the system interactively, the input means including;

indicator means for identifying items on the screen by means of a visible on-screen indicator.

selection means for communicating a selection to the system on the basis of displayed information, and

help request means for requesting help information from the system, the system further including;

an addressable store of hierarchical help text information,

contextual help means responsive to an appropriate request for help and to the current state of the system, as defined by a plurality of system state variables including low order and high order variables, which are applied by the contextual help means as addressing information, when help was requested to access the help text store to obtain appropriate help text and to cause the display manager to display said help text through a help text window on said screen, concurrently with the information related to the task or tasks in hand which was being displayed when help was requested, said low order system variables being related to the position of the indicators on the screen.

help map display means responsive to selection by said selection means to cause the display manager to display in a separate window, concurrently with said help text window and said information related to the task or tasks in hand, at least a portion of a hierarchical map of the stored help text, each entry of which corresponds to a unit of stored help text, and

means responsive to selection of a map entry by said selection means to cause help text corresponding to the selected map entry to replace that in the help text window.

wherein one said system variable corresponds to the panel in which the indicator is located, a lower order system variable corresponds to the location of the indicator within a predefined box in the panel and a higher order system variable corresponds to the application which owns the panel, there being three corresponding orders of help text for boxes, panels and applications, the panel order of help being selectable from a predetermined help box in the panel or from a non-boxed area of the panel and the application order of help being selectable from the help map or from a system state in which the lower order system variables are set to null value.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1 in which the help text store also contains help text for a facility order of help, above the application order of help, and corresponding to a facility order system variable.

3. A data processing system having a workstation, comprising:

a display for displaying on a screen panels of information relating to one or more tasks, the panels being viewable through windows under the control of a display manager, and

operator input means by which an operator can communicate with the system interactively, the input means including;

indicator means for identifying items on the screen by means of a visible on-screen indicator,

selection means for communicating a selection to the system on the basis of displayed information, and

help request means for requesting help information from the system, the system further including;

an addressable store of hierarchical help text information,

contextual help means responsive to an appropriate request for help and to the current state of the system, as defined by a plurality of system state variables including low order and high order variables which the contextual help means applies as addressing information, when help was requested to access the help text store to obtain appropriate help text and to cause the display manager to display said help text through a help text window on said screen, concurrently with the information related to the task or tasks in hand which was being displayed when help was requested.

help map display means responsive to selection by said selection means to cause the display manager to display in a separate window, concurrently with said help text window and said information related to the task or the tasks in hand, at least a portion of a hierarchical map of the stored help text, each entry of which corresponds to a unit of stored help text, wherein if the help map is too large to be viewed through a help map window, the help map display means being responsive to the current system variables, where these do not define the highest order of system state, to select for display map entries of the same order as the current system variables which share common higher order system variables and also to select for display the higher order entry represented by said common higher order variables.

means responsive to selection of a map entry by said selection means to cause help text corresponding to the selected map entry to replace that in the help text window.

4. A system according to claim 3 in which the help map display means include a selectively operable branching means, selection of branching for a given map entry causing display of a new help map including the given entry as the higher order entry, where the given entry was originally one of the lower order entries in the map, and as one of a group of lower order entries, where the given entry was originally the higher order entry in the map.

5. A system according to claim 4 in which the selection means is associated with the indicator means so that the displayed item indicated by the visible indicator is selectable by operation of the selection means and the displayed map entries include icons indicating the permitted direction of branching, if any, the branching operation being selected by operation of said selection means when said visible indicator is position on one of said icons.

6. A data processing system having a workstation, comprising:

a displaying for displaying on a screen panels of information relating to one or more tasks, the panels being viewable through window under the control of a display manager, and

operator input means by which an operator can communicate with the system interactively, the input means including;

indicator means for identifying items on the screen by means of a visible on-screen indicator.

selection means for communicating a selection to the system on the basis of displayed information, said selection means being associated with the indicator means so that the displayed item indicated by the visible indicator is selected by operation of the selection means, and

help request means for requesting help information from the system, the system further including;

an addressable store of hierarchical help text information wherein a unit of help text can include selectable branch words within the body of the text which are associated with related units of help text, the system including help text branching means responsive to selection of a selectable word in a help text window by the indicator means and the selection means to access the related unit of the help text in the help text store and to cause the display manager to replace the original help text in the help text window with said related unit of help text,

contextual help means responsive to an appropriate request for help and to the current state of the system when help was requested to access the help text store to obtain appropriate help text and to cause the display manager to display said help text through a help text window on said screen, concurrently with the information related to the task or task in hand which was being displayed when help was requested,

help map display means responsive to selection by said selection means to cause the display manager to display in a separate window, concurrently with said help text window and said information related to the task or tasks in hand, at least a portion of a hierarchical map of the stored help text, each entry of which corresponds to a unit of stored help text,

means responsive to selection of a map entry by said selection means to cause help text corresponding to the selected map entry to replace that in the help text window, and

a glossary store wherein selection of a help text word other than a selectable branch word causes the display of a glossary window containing a definition of the selected word or a list of the alphabetically nearest words.