Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!toma
From: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: World's best word processor
Message-ID: <5314@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 89 14:00:26 GMT
References: <353@hal.UUCP> <8619@chinet.chi.il.us> <554@rb-dc1.UUCP>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 23

In article <554@rb-dc1.UUCP> shapiro@rb-dc1.SanDiego.gould.UUCP (Michael Shapiro) writes:
>In article <8619@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie
>Mikesell) writes (regarding WordPerfect):
>>The key mapping is certainly non-intuitive, but you really only have to
>>remember that F3 is the help key.
>               ^^
>This points out one of the problems with the non-intuitive product
>design.  While not a standard, a quite common convention of PC
>software is the use of F1 as the help key.  I'd really be interested
>in knowing why the designer (or design team) of WP chose to go with an
>arbitrarily different selection.
>

Well, just to hazzard a guess, Word Perfect is an old product.  Perhaps
when it first came out there was no consensus as to where to put the help
key.  At any rate, the keyboard is "soft" and even WordPerfect Corp. supplies
a redefined keyboard with F1 being Help (instead of cancel), Esc being
cancel (instead of repeat) and F3 being repeat (instead of help).  Personally,
I like the old standard of ^J for help (:-).

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply