Standard for calling the help from within an application

[MC Hammer]

Hello everyone
I would like to know if there is a standard (like F1 keyboard key or CTRL + F1) for calling a help system from a piece of software?
I know this is not a Flare question per-se but there is no sub-forum for general Help issues and as we all write help, I thought I would ask my peers!

Thank you.

[RamonS]

The only other convention I know of is the Help button. The Help button typically shows a topic that covers the currently active area or function, while F1 to me suggests a more detailed, potentially field level help, but I found that in many cases Help and F1 do the same.
Problems with F1 occur with browser based apps. In that case you have an application (the browser) display a different application. Pressing F1 here will get one the help for the browser. I don't know if there are means to intercept this, but maybe a key press of F2 can be detected instead.
I have never heard of CTRL+F1 as a means to access help. I tried it with the applications I have open right now and none of them did anything.

[LTinker68]

Far as I know, F1 has always been the standard for accessing the help. Whether it accessed the welcome page of the help, went directly to a specific topic in the help, or displayed field-level help depends on how the call to the help is programmed in your application. It's certainly more impressive and user-friendly to have pressing F1 open the help to a topic dealing with the screen currently visible in your application. (Personally, I find field-level help annoying, because if you want to know about all the fields, then you have to select the field, press F1, select another field, press F1, and so on).

That said, you should still have a menu option (labeled Help or User Assistance) available. Not only will that help with users who need screen readers, but a lot of people don't know about the F1 convention. In fact, I'd say the typical user probably doesn't interact with the function keys at all and has no idea what they're for. If you're audience is composed of software people or others heavily involved with computers, then they might know, but it's hard to count on that. Plus, people are used to certain behaviors in software programs, and it's pretty much the norm now to have a menu option that accesses the help. So regardless if you add support for the F1 convention, at least have a menu option to get to the help.

[RamonS]

Lisa is right, the Help menu is a must as well. I personally like field level help a lot. If I want a general type help for a form I click the Help button. There aren't many applications that have field / control level help, because you need to craft a context ID for each UI element you want to offer help for. That is an insane amount of work and often enough is implemented as a tool tip (those yellow text boxes). The disadvantage with a tool tip is that it is limited to one line of text, does not allow for any formatting, and cannot contain anything else other than text. A field level help using a 'real' help topic would cover the fields name, function, limitations, and in case of radio buttons or combo boxes also the available entries if they are set values or reference the source of the entries in the list.
I once implemented field level help with all the bazillion IDs and the bells and whistles. The Help button showed a general topic for the currently active form, and from the Help menu one could choose to go directly to the "How do I...." topics that cover concepts or tasks that typically span multiple forms. It was for a complex application for real time monitoring of access control systems, had voice output and programmable triggers and all things nice. We finished it, I was about to bring the master CD to support for distribution when management decided that they no longer want this product. About a year of three developers, two testers, and my TW work went straight to the trash can. Sorry, I'm digressing.....

[MC Hammer]

Hello both
As usual, very interesting input and digression ( ) from both, very much appreciated. I agree that the Help menu is a must. In my query, I was most interested in how to access the help within a software using shortcut commands.
Re: the F1+CTRL command, I have been told it is a default in .NET but like you, I have never seen this in any application so I am a bit puzzled. Re: the type of Help, I guess it is personal preference as well as usability that dictate it. I like field-level help but I found it a pain to implement and to be honest, I am not sure our users would like it. We implement context-sensitive help at dialog level. When a user presses the Help button or F1 on a dialog in our software, the help launches and is opened on the help topic for that specific dialog.
Thanks again!

[RamonS]

That may be a default for VisualStudio .NET, but not for a .NET based application, such as Flare.