Talking code: some comments
If you don't pass the help dialog a window title, the code above displays the selected table cell number at the top of the help dialog. This is a great aid when writing your help, especially if you number each cell on its tab. To number each tab, temporarily set "Which row to display" to "Users pick row via tab buttons." Add the numbers to each tab and then select, "Switch rows programmatically" again, as shown in Figure F.

FIGURE F


Number the cells on the help table. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Although this approach has been aimed at displaying help from the current database, you can just as easily display documents from another database. Here at Candescent, we use something called a "Global Configuration Database," an excellent idea from Tactica Technology Group (at http://www.tactica.com). The Global Config database is a central repository for keyword lists and roles for all our Notes applications. Each keyword on a list has an explanation of when to use it.

Figure G shows an example of a help dialog in a database with the help information sourced from the Global Config database.

FIGURE G


A help dialog from another database is displayed full screen. Roll over picture for a larger image.

At the top of the help screen are the keywords, and below are the full explanations. A really nice feature of this approach is that it lets me keep the user help on the same document as the keyword list in the Global Config database, rather than somewhere else. When I change the keywords, I now remember to update the help!

Some enhancements
No matter what you write, you'll always find ways to improve it. Here are some ideas that occurred to me while writing this article:

• Give the option of whether or not to open the help dialog sized to table. If you don't size to table, you can scroll around your help form. This allows you to present more information.

• Test whether the help form exists. Display a better warning than the Notes default. You should try and catch those errors before your users do!

• You could use JavaScript to open the help in an entirely new window, like the built in Notes help. However, my impression is that in R5 JavaScript, support is too limited to do this effectively. To put this another way, I haven't yet managed to find a way to do it that makes me happy.

• Web support would be useful.

Conclusion
In this article, you saw examples of using dialog boxes as help. I showed you how to build a help dialog and the code behind it. We covered some ideas for managing this help information and ended with a few enhancements. My hope is that this article has inspired you to try some alternatives to the standard Notes help approach.

Finally, a suggestion to Iris: Make the existing field help pop up like a "Tool tip" both in Notes and a browser. That would be really cool!

Chris Doig manages the Notes environment at Candescent, in San Jose, CA. He has been working with Notes since 1994 in both development and administrative capacities. His primary interests include fine-tuning the corporate development process using tools like the Capability Maturity Model.