Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ysub!psuvm!cxt105 Organization: Penn State University Date: Tuesday, 28 May 1991 11:18:57 EDT From: Christopher Tate Message-ID: <91148.111857CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu> Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Balloon Help Idea I've been talking to some non-programmer co-workers of mine about System 7, and have also been following the threads on balloon help on the Mac newsgroups. It's true that having balloon help on gets real annoying real fast, but it's also a great way to wander around on the screen and get basic info on everything you can see. Now, one of the major complaints about the balloon help interface is that you have to actually go into the menu to turn it off. This seems to a lot of people like a wasted action -- there's no command key for it or some such. So, here's a proposal for a "standardized" change to the user interface, similar to the "standard" command keys for things like print, open, save, and such: use the "help" key, if present, to toggle balloon help off and on. My motivation here is that the help key should provide immediate, context- sensitive help, something like what balloon help provides (point at something to see what it does). If the user wants *explanatory* help, he or she can pull down a menu -- it offers less obstruction to the "flow" of intended action. Someone who wants the on-line tutorial or whatever is prepared to wait a bit for it to get going, and is prepared for the context change associated with it. In contrast, someone who wants to turn balloon help on wants that help *in his current context*, so the move to the menu bar is an interruption. This is in come ways similar to the way Microsoft Word handles the help key -- you press help, and the cursor changes to a question mark. The next thing you click on or select in the menus is a topic that comes up in the online help, rather than being executed. This behavior is modal, and so controversial; balloon help is non-modal, and so less intrusive in the user's flow of actions. Of course, the idea can be extended -- perhaps using command-help to get the "real" online help instead of balloon help, or whatever. The key idea is to make the help key a toggle for turning balloon help on and off. Anyone know how to do this? Is there an AppleEvent for it (the best (IMHO) method)? As more and more applications start supporting balloon help, I see this sort of streamlining of the interface becoming important. Comments, everyone? (-: ------- Christopher Tate | "I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black; | It's hard to dance with the Devil at your back! cxt105@psuvm.psu.edu | They cut me down and they thought I'd gone, cxt105@psuvm.bitnet | But I am the Dance and I still go on!"