Context sensitive help

• US 8,151,192 B2
• Filed: 02/01/2008
• Issued: 04/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Black, Jason Eric, Varma, Ashwini
• Primary Examiner(s): Chow, Doon
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHOI, DAVID E
• Application Number:
  US12/024,287
• Publication Number:
  US 20090199097A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,523 Days
• Field of Search: 715/708, 715/826, 715/794, 715/714, 715/707, 715/705
• US Class Current: 715/708
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing context sensitive help on an electronic device. The system include a processor, an application attributes discovery module which provides one or more attributes associated with an application running on the electronic device, a system state discovery module which provides system information associated with components of the electronic device, a help infrastructure module which uses the system information and application attributes to determine a help context at the time a user invokes a request for help, a help context mapping module which includes one or more help contexts including a context node that best matches the system state information and which contains one or more help topic identifiers that are mapped to help topics, a help topic collection module that provides one or more help topics corresponding to the help topic identifiers and a help viewer that displays the help topics.

Claims

1. A system for providing context sensitive help for an electronic device, the system comprising:

a central processing unit;

a data storage device;

an application attributes discovery module providing one or more attributes associated with an application running on the electronic device, wherein the attributes include the name and type of application running;

a system state discovery module providing system discoverable state information associated with components of the electronic device;

a help infrastructure module using the system information and the attributes to determine a help context set, the help context set being determined at a time a user invokes a request for help;

a help context mapping module, the help context mapping module being included on the electronic device and being external to the application'"'"'s executable code on the electronic device, the help context mapping module including one or more application contexts, wherein the help context mapping module contains mapping tables, wherein the mapping tables are contained in XML files, the application contexts including one or more first help topic identifiers mapped to one or more first help topics, each of the application contexts including one or more context nodes, each of the one or more context nodes being associated with system state information, each of the one or context nodes including one or more second help topic identifiers mapped to one or more second help topics, at least one of the first help topic identifiers being an identifier associated with the application running on the electronic device and at least one of the second help topic identifiers being associated with the discoverable system state information as related to the application running on the electronic device, the first help topic identifiers associated with the discoverable system state information being different than the second help topic identifiers associated with the application running on the electronic device;

a help topic collection module providing the first help topics and the second help topics, the help topic collection module being external to the application'"'"'s executable code;

and a help viewer, the help viewer displaying the help topics;

wherein the help infrastructure module obtains a best match between the help context set and an application context and wherein help topic identifiers are selected for mapping to help topics based on this best match.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the attributes include an operation being performed by the application at the time the help request is made.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the system information is selected from the group consisting of:

information from the system registry, information from the clock, information from the networking stack, information from the radio stack, information from the battery driver, information from the system calendar and information regarding plug-ins being used.

4. A method for providing context sensitive help to a user of a mobile electronic device, the method comprising:

receiving a request for help from a user of the mobile electronic device, wherein the request for help originates from a mobile phone;

identifying an application running on the mobile electronic device for which the request for help is being made;

evaluating attributes of the application, wherein the attributes including the name and type of the applications running;

determining system state information of the mobile electronic device;

obtaining a help context set from an evaluation of the attributes and the system state information, the help context set obtained at runtime when the user makes a request for help;

identifying an application context and a context node that best matches the help context set, the application context including one or more first help topic identifiers, at least one of the first help topic identifiers being an identifier associated with the application running on the mobile electronic device, the context node being one of one or more context nodes included with the application context, each context node including one or more second help topic identifiers associated with the system state information as related to the application running on the mobile electronic device, the first help topic identifiers being different from the second help topic identifiers;

mapping using mapping tables to map a first help topic identifier to a first help topic, the first help topic being associated with the application running on the electronic device, the mapping tables being included on the mobile electronic device and being external to the application running on the electronic device;

mapping a second help topic identifier to a second help topic, the second help topic being associated with the system state information;

and displaying the help topic on the mobile electronic device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the attributes including the operation being performed by the application at the time the help request is made.

6. The method of claim 4, further wherein the system state is selected from the group consisting of:

information from the system registry, information from the clock, information from the networking stack, information from the radio stack, information from the battery driver, information from the system calendar and information regarding plug-ins being used.

7. A computer readable storage medium containing computer executable instructions which when executed perform a method for providing context sensitive help to a user of an electronic device, the method comprising:

receiving a request for help from a user, the help request originating from a mobile phone;

identifying an application running on the electronic device for which the request for help is being made;

evaluating the attributes of the application, the attributes including an operation being performed by the application at the time the help request is made;

determining system state information for the electronic device, the system state information being selected from the group consisting of;

information from the system registry, information from the clock, information from the networking stack, information from the radio stack, information from the battery driver, information from the system calendar and information regarding plug-ins being used;

obtaining a help context set from an evaluation of the attributes and the system state information, the help context set obtained at runtime when the user makes a request for help;

identifying an application context and a context node that best matches the help context set, the application context including one or more first help topic identifiers associated with the application running on the electronic device, the context node being associated with the system state information, the context node being one of one or more context nodes included with the application context, each context node including one or more second help topic identifiers associated with a specific system state, one of the context nodes corresponding to a current system state, the first help topic identifiers being different from the second help topic identifiers;

using mapping tables to map a first help topic identifier to a first help topic, the first help topic being associated with the application running on the electronic device, the mapping tables being included on the electronic device and being external to the application'"'"'s executable code on the electronic device, wherein the mapping tables are contained in XML files including an XML schema with a context map having set of application contexts, and wherein each of the application contexts includes an attribute identifier describing one of the application contexts as determined by discoverable application attributes, and one or more context nodes representing the system state information;

mapping a second help topic identifier to a second help topic, the second help topic being associated with the current system state; and

displaying the first help topic and the second help topic.