Re: What should the user see? (Was: ANNOUNCE : HelpViewer 0.1)

[Nicolas Roard]

On 2003-01-22 16:42:31 +0100 Jonathan Gapen <jagapen@students.wisc.edu> wrote:

> > I'd put the main part of the help display code in NSHelpPanel, and have
> > the helpviewer app add the capability to show/search help from
> > multiple applications.
>
>         I agree.  As you said, a help panel keeps its state per-application.
>         Using the existing API, a helpviewer app could fill up its own help
> panel with other apps' help files (ab)using the -addSupplement:inPath:
> method, but a more general method which could prove useful is adding a
> method to allow apps to generate help items at run-time.

I also agree ;-)
It seems that implementing NSHelpPanel is the best solution, even if Apple
removed it ;-)
GNUstep has a NSHelpPanel skeleton.

>                                    ----
>         Perhaps it would help (ha! ha!) in this discussion to put aside
> issues of external apps vs. panels, DO APIs, file formats and other
> implementation issues to focus on the question:  What should the user see?
>         In some cases, that's pretty clear:  When using GNUstep as a
> cross-platform compatibility layer, the user should see the native help
> system.  That's why NeXT invented the NSHelpManager class.  But in a
> native GNUstep environment, what?

The problem is that I'm not really sure about that (ie, using the native help
system). Partly because current existing helps systems sucks on most OS imho.

--
Nicolas Roard <nicolas@roard.com>
http://info.xdev.org/projets/waiho
the linux philosophy is laugh in the face of danger. Oops. Wrong one. 'Do it 
yourself'. That's it.