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|  | <h1>User Assistance Overview</h1> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="homeitem3col"> | 
|  | <h3>Overview</h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | User Assistance is a component of the Eclipse Platform whose mission is to provide for assisting users of Eclipse | 
|  | applications in all phases of the usage cycle. It is not a single workbench artifact but rather a collection | 
|  | artifacts tailored to provide a particular flavor of assistance. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | The User Assistance component includes the following systems and mechanisms: | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ul> | 
|  | <li>Welcome</li> | 
|  | <li>Help</li> | 
|  | <li>Cheat sheets</li> | 
|  | <li>UI Forms*</li> | 
|  | <li>Samples</li> | 
|  | <li>Browsers</li> | 
|  | </ul> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | * Although UI Forms are strictly a SWT-based toolkit for creating slick user interfaces and are not directly aimed at | 
|  | User Assistance, it is listed here because it is owned by the same team and because form-based UIs are typically | 
|  | easier to understand and use. In addition, UI Forms are particularly good at integrating user assistance content | 
|  | directly into the user interface. This reduces the need for users to leave the work area to read user assistance | 
|  | content. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | User Assistance is more than the current list of technologies. Our mission can be summed up in the following way: | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | <em>The User Assistance component is a hub for all ideas and mechanisms that serve the purpose of making Eclipse | 
|  | applications easier to use both for new and returning users.</em> | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | We will briefly describe the current elements of the User Assistance component the following section. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="homeitem3col"> | 
|  | <h3>Welcome</h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/ua_intro.htm"> | 
|  | Welcome</a> support provides for greeting the first time users of an Eclipse application with a series of pages | 
|  | that are meant to introduce him/her to the application and make the initial experience favorable. The implementation | 
|  | can simply guide the user through the initial setup and then offer common tasks to do in the application, offer | 
|  | tutorials, samples (for development applications), links to online resources, news etc. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | The trigger and lifecycle of the welcome support is controlled by the workbench. If welcome content is registered, | 
|  | it will be opened on fresh startup. Once closed, it can be reopened from the Help menu. In the most direct form, | 
|  | welcome can be written using pure SWT widgets. However, a more typical scenario is to use the support provided by the | 
|  | User Assistance intro component and author welcome content as a series of web pages, using either XML, HTML or XHTML | 
|  | format. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | When XML or XHTML formats are used, welcome content can be particularly flexible because content reuse, content | 
|  | contribution and dynamic content are supported. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <img class="illustration" src="images/overview_welcome.png" alt="Welcome page"/> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="homeitem3col"> | 
|  | <h3>Help</h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/ua_help.htm">The Eclipse platform's | 
|  | help</a> facilities provide the raw building blocks to structure and contribute documentation to the platform. It | 
|  | does not dictate structure or granularity of documentation. You can choose the tools and structure for your | 
|  | documentation that suits your needs. The help plug-in allows you to describe your documentation structure to | 
|  | the platform using a table of contents (toc) file. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | Help system can be used in three modes: | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <ol> | 
|  | <li><b>Integrated</b> - If you are creating an Eclipse-based product, the help system is automatically provided. | 
|  | You can launch the help browser from the <b>Help</b> menu in the workbench, or through welcome or dynamic help | 
|  | links.</li> | 
|  | <li><b>Stand-alone (local)</b> - If you are creating an application that is not based on the Eclipse framework, | 
|  | you can still use the Eclipse help system. Your application can package and install the <i>stand-alone help | 
|  | system</i>, a very small version of Eclipse that has had everything except the help system stripped out of it. | 
|  | Then, your application can make API calls from its <b>Help</b> menu, or from UI objects, to launch the help | 
|  | browser. The stand-alone help system has all the features of the integrated help system, as described in the | 
|  | following sections. However, it interacts 	with the application UI for features such as context-sensitive help | 
|  | or active help will vary. All features except dynamic help and active help are supported.</li> | 
|  | <li><b>Infocenter (served)</b> - You can also allow your users to access the help system over the Internet or | 
|  | their intranet, by installing the stand-alone help system and the documentation plug-ins on a server. The | 
|  | application accesses the documentation by calling a URL, and the help system is shown in their web browser. The | 
|  | infocenter help system can be used both for client applications and for web applications, either of which can have | 
|  | their help accessed remotely. All features except dynamic and active help are supported.</li> | 
|  | </ol> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <img class="illustration" src="images/overview_help.png" alt="Online help"/> | 
|  | <img class="illustration" src="images/overview_dynamic_help.png" alt="Dynamic help"/> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="homeitem3col"> | 
|  | <h3>Cheat sheets</h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/ua_cheatsheet.htm"> | 
|  | Cheat sheets</a> are a type of assistive technology that is meant to lead users through sequential tasks. They | 
|  | follow the user through steps, offer help links for each, provide an option to perform the step for the user or | 
|  | let the user do it herself. Cheat sheets are available from the Help menu but can be programmatically opened whenever | 
|  | a task assistance is needed. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <img class="illustration" src="images/overview_cheatsheets.png" alt="Cheat sheets"/> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="homeitem3col"> | 
|  | <h3>UI Forms</h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/forms.htm"> UI Forms</a> is a toolkit | 
|  | based on SWT for creating powerful Web-like user interfaces. It is not strictly part of user assistance but is used as | 
|  | a technology for many User Assistance artifacts (implementation of initial user experience for platforms that do not | 
|  | support embedded browser, dynamic help view, cheat sheets etc.). For example, PDE multi-page editors use UI Forms | 
|  | extensively: | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <img class="illustration" src="images/overview_forms.png" alt="UI Forms"/> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <div class="homeitem3col"> | 
|  | <h3>Samples</h3> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p>Samples are code artifacts that are imported into the workspace as projects so that users can browse the code and | 
|  | launch it. User Assistance provides support for samples that ensures the code compiles correctly regardless of the | 
|  | settings and the environment. When launched from the Welcome window, a Forms-based view provides assistance for the | 
|  | sample. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <img class="illustration" src="images/overview_samples.png" alt="Samples"/> | 
|  |  | 
|  | <p> | 
|  | Support for samples will be reworked and opened up in the coming releases. Watch User Assistance home page for design | 
|  | documents in the near future. | 
|  | </p> | 
|  | </div> | 
|  |  | 
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