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24 :     <h1>Eclipse User Assistance
25 :     Overview</font></h1>
26 :     <p>The Eclipse User Assistance is a component of the
27 :     Eclipse Platform whose mission is to provide for assisting users of Eclipse
28 :     applications in all phases of the usage cycle. It is not a single workbench
29 :     artifact but rather a collection artifacts tailored to provide a particular
30 :     flavor of assistance.</p>
31 :     <p>User Assistance component includes the following systems and mechanisms:</p>
32 :     <ul>
33 :     <li>Online Help system for serving traditional help documents</li>
34 :     <li>Initial User Experience (Welcome) support</li>
35 :     <li>Cheat sheets</li>
36 :     <li>UI Forms<font color="#800000">*</font></li>
37 :     <li>Samples</li>
38 :     <li>Eclipse Automation</li>
39 :     </ul>
40 : dejan 1.2 <p><font color="#800000">* Although UI Forms are strictly a SWT-based toolkit for creating slick
41 : dejan 1.1 user interfaces and are not directly aimed at user assistance, it is listed here
42 : dejan 1.2 because it is owned by the same team and because form-based UIs are typically
43 :     easer to understand and use. In addition, UI Forms are particularly good at
44 :     integrating user assistance content directly into the user interface. This
45 :     reduces the need for users to leave the work area to read user assistance
46 :     content.</font></p>
47 :     <p>Eclipse User Assistance is more than the current list of technologies. Our
48 :     mission can be summed up in the following way:</p>
49 :     <p><b>Eclipse User Assistance component is a hub for all ideas and mechanisms that serve the purpose of making Eclipse
50 :     applications easier to use both for new and returning users.</b></p>
51 :     <p>We will briefly describe the current elements of the User Assistance
52 :     component the following text.</p>
53 : dejan 1.1 <h2>Online Help</h2>
54 :     <p>
55 :     <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/help31/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/help.htm">
56 :     The Eclipse platform's help</a> facilities provide the raw building blocks to
57 :     structure and contribute documentation to the platform. It does not dictate
58 :     structure or granularity of documentation. You can choose the tools and
59 :     structure for your documentation that suits your needs.&nbsp;The help plug-in allows
60 :     you to describe your documentation structure to the platform using a table of
61 :     contents (toc) file.</p>
62 :     <p>Help system can be used in three modes:</p>
63 :     <ol>
64 :     <li><b>Integrated</font> </b>- If you are creating an Eclipse-based product,
65 :     the help system is automatically provided. You can launch the help browser
66 :     from the <b>Help</b> menu in the workbench, or through welcome or dynamic
67 :     help links.<br>
68 :     &nbsp;</li>
69 :     <li><b>Stand-alone (local)</font></b> - If you are creating an application
70 :     that is not based on the Eclipse framework, you can still use the Eclipse
71 :     help system. Your application can package and install the <i>stand-alone
72 :     help system</i>, a very small version of Eclipse that has had everything
73 :     except the help system stripped out of it. Then, your application can make
74 :     API calls from its <b>Help</b> menu, or from UI objects, to launch the help
75 :     browser. The stand-alone help system has all the features of the integrated
76 :     help system, as described in the following sections. However, it interacts
77 :     with the application UI for features such as context-sensitive help or
78 :     active help will vary. All features except dynamic help and active help are
79 :     supported.<br>
80 :     &nbsp;</li>
81 :     <li><b>Infocenter (served)</font></b> - You can also allow your users to
82 :     access the help system over the Internet or their intranet, by installing
83 :     the stand-alone help system and the documentation plug-ins on a server. The
84 :     application accesses the documentation by calling a URL, and the help system
85 :     is shown in their web browser. The infocenter help system can be used both
86 :     for client applications and for web applications, either of which can have
87 :     their help accessed remotely. All features except dynamic and active help
88 :     are supported. </li>
89 :     </ol>
90 :     <p align="center">
91 :     <img border="0" src="images/overview-help.png" width="600" height="450"></p>
92 :     <p align="center">
93 :     <img border="0" src="images/overview-dynamic-help.png" width="298" height="837"></p>
94 :     <h2>Initial User Experience (Welcome)</h2>
95 :     <p>
96 :     <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/help31/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/workbench_advext_intro.htm">
97 :     Initial User Experience</a> support provides for greeting the first time users
98 :     of an Eclipse application with a series of pages that are meant to introduce
99 :     him/her to the application and make the initial experience favorable. The
100 :     implementation can simply guide the user through the initial setup and then
101 :     offer common tasks to do in the application, offer tutorials, samples (for
102 :     development applications), links to online resources, news etc.</p>
103 :     <p>The trigger and lifecycle of the welcome support is controlled by the
104 :     workbench. If welcome content is registered, it will be opened on fresh startup.
105 :     Once closed, it can be reopened from the Help menu. In the most direct form,
106 :     welcome can be written using pure SWT widgets. However, a more typical scenario
107 :     is to use the support provided by the User Assistance intro component and author
108 :     welcome content as a series of web pages, using either XML, HTML or XHTML
109 :     format.</p>
110 :     <p>When XML or XHTML formats are used, welcome content can be particularly
111 :     flexible because content reuse, content contribution and dynamic content are
112 :     supported.</p>
113 :     <p align="center">
114 :     <img border="0" src="images/overview-welcome.png" width="480" height="379"></p>
115 :     <h2>Cheat sheets</h2>
116 :     <p>
117 :     <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/help31/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/workbench_advext_cheatsheets.htm">
118 :     Cheat sheets</a> are a type of assistive technology that is meant to lead users
119 :     through sequential tasks. They follow the user through steps, offer help links
120 :     for each, provide an option to perform the step for the user or let the user do
121 :     it herself. Cheat sheets are available from the Help menu but can be
122 :     programmatically opened whenever a task assistance is needed.</p>
123 :     <p align="center">
124 :     <img border="0" src="images/overview-cheatsheets.png" width="200" height="559"></p>
125 :     <h2>UI Forms</h2>
126 :     <p>
127 :     <a href="http://help.eclipse.org/help31/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/forms.htm">
128 :     UI Forms</a> is a toolkit based on SWT for creating powerful Web-like user
129 :     interfaces. It is not strictly part of user assistance but is used as a
130 :     technology for many User Assistance artifacts (implementation of initial user
131 :     experience for platforms that do not support embedded browser, dynamic help
132 :     view, cheat sheets etc.). For example, PDE multi-page editors use UI Forms
133 :     extensively:</p>
134 :     <p align="center">
135 :     <img border="0" src="images/overview-uiforms.png" width="460" height="433"></p>
136 :     <h2>Samples</h2>
137 :     <p>Samples are code artifacts that are imported into the workspace as projects
138 :     so that users can browse the code and lunch it. User Assistance provides support
139 :     for samples that ensures the code compiles correctly regardless of the settings
140 :     and the environment. When launched from the Welcome window, a Forms-based view
141 :     provides assistance for the sample.</p>
142 :     <p align="center">
143 :     <img border="0" src="images/overview-samples.png" width="298" height="422"></p>
144 :     <p align="left">
145 :     <font color="#800000">Support for samples will be reworked and opened up in the
146 :     coming releases. Watch User Assistance home page for design documents in the
147 :     near future.</font></p>
148 :     <h2>Eclipse Automation</h2>
149 :     <p>Eclipse Automation has two main aspects: tracking and playback. Tracking user
150 :     activity can be used for various purposes such as monitoring user actions,
151 :     recording these actions for further analysis, recording commands into groups
152 :     (macros) etc. The flip side is the process of affecting the workbench behavior
153 :     by playing these commands back, typically by executing a script. Although the
154 :     two processes are interrelated, the one does not necessarily require the other.
155 :     For example, although command sequences can be recorded and played back later,
156 :     the sequence of commands can also be hand-crafted. Similarly, sequence of
157 :     commands can be converted into an activity report without any further desire to
158 :     feed it back into the workbench.</p>
159 :     <p>The area of application automation is wide and there are many approaches
160 :     depending on the task (macro recording/playback, scripting, usage analysis,
161 :     automated GUI testing). The goal of Eclipse Automation is not to provide a
162 :     complete solution for all these approaches. Instead, it is limited to enabling
163 :     Eclipse platform to expose itself to all kinds of automation approaches that can
164 :     be contributed by the applications building on top of the platform.</p>
165 :     <p><font color="#800000">Eclipse Automation is currently in the design stage.
166 :     Watch User Assistance home page for design documents in the near future.</font></p>
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