Getting Help

3

This chapter explains how you get on-line help while using OpenStep. You can get help for an object on the screen, use the Help table of contents to look up a task, use the Help index to look up a topic, or use the Help search feature to search for any help text that contains a word or phrase you type in.

Clicking for Help

When you're working in the File Viewer, Mail, Edit, and some other applications, you can get help with your work by "help-clicking" on a screen object.

Hold down the Help key on the keyboard.
The pointer changes to a question mark ( ).
If your keyboard doesn't have a Help key, try getting the question mark pointer by pressing F1, or by pressing the Alt and Control keys at the same time.
Click on the object you want help with; it can be a menu command, window, button, or other type of object.
The Help panel opens, with information about the object you clicked.

Note - If you want help with Help, use the question mark pointer to choose the Help command in the Info menu.

3. You can scroll the Help panel to read more, or click on any word or phrase marked with a

button to get help on a related topic.

For information about scrolling, see "Scrolling" on page 2-5.

Figure 3-1

Getting Help for a Task or Topic

You can get help with tasks or topics.

To get help with a specific task, look through the Help panel's table of contents and choose the task you are trying to perform.

Choose Help from the Info submenu.
The Help panel opens. If the Help panel is already open, click in it to make it the key window.
Click on an entry in the Help table of contents.
Instructions for the task you chose appear in the Help panel. You can scroll the table of contents to find the task you want help with.

Figure 3-2

To get help with a specific topic, look through the Help panel's index and choose the topic you want to learn about.

Choose Help from the Info submenu.

Click on the Help panel's Index button.
An index of help topics appears.
Click on the topic you want help with.
Help about the topic you clicked appears in the Help panel

Figure 3-3

Searching for a Word or Phrase

If you can't find what you need with the Help panel's table of contents and index, you can use its search feature, which looks for help text containing a word or phrase that you type.

Open the Help panel.
You can open the Help panel by choosing Help from the Info menu, or by clicking on an object with the question mark pointer.
Click in the text field at the top of the Help panel and type the word or phrase you want to get help with.
Click on the Find button.
The Help panel searches for help that contains the word or phrase you typed. The first topic that contains the word or phrase you typed appears in the Help panel; the word or phrase is highlighted.
To find another topic that contains your word or phrase, click on the Find button again.
The next topic that contains the word or phrase appears in the panel.

Figure 3-4