[Beth Melton]

I can imagine how Help appears to you if you switched from Office 97 to
Office 2007. Trust me, you'd be appalled at the state of Help if you
upgraded from Office 97 to Office 2000. Even worse if you jumped from Office
97 to Office 2003. Believe it or not, they fixed Help in Office 2007. It was
worse in previous versions. If I'm not mistaken, Office 97 was the last of
its kind when it came to great context-sensitive Help. :-(

Another item you might find amazing is many of us are thrilled with the
changes they made in Help for Office 2007. (Keep in mind after 97 Help
started to go down hill). We presented a large "wish list" to Microsoft
(we=MVPs) and MS actually did take a LOT of our feedback into consideration
in the 2007 version.


You've got a great wish list. :-) To cover a few of them:

- What you are calling "level 1", the context-sensitive Help tool
(Shift+F1 - the first item in your list), is likely to never be implemented
again in most of the Office applications. There are two reasons behind this,
one, it can't be integrated with the Online Help functionality and updated
when needed. Two, it uses a functionality they migrated away from a few
versions ago. Instead, the ? Help tool will be tied to displaying Help pages
instead of a tool tip. Now, some of this functionality has been added back
in the Enhanced Screen Tips but that's currently limited to the commands on
the Ribbon.

-What you are called "level 2", the ? in the dialog boxes, this should
currently be available in all dialog boxes. (They actually took this away
from the majority of dialog boxes prior to 2007). If there are dialog boxes
with a missing ? Help tool then I'd consider that a bug. (Note that the
Paragraph dialog box you noted, I suspect content will be added if viewing
the Line and Page Break options will come at some point. As noted before,
I've noticed they actually are updating this type of content and it's not
finished. (Which, of course, the fact that a lot of content is missing is a
problem.)

- There is a TOC available. If when you open Help, you click the closed
purple book on the Help toolbar it will open the TOC. Once opened it will
remain open for subsequent visits to Help.

As for the other items, I do see a lot of what you want is to add the same
functionality as we had in Office 97. Sadly, I suspect if this were going to
happen then we'd have seen those changes by now.) There are others that I
think would be great improvements. If you don't mind, I'm going to swipe
those items and use them as feedback the next opportunity I get. :-)


Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"LongtimeUser" wrote in message
...
I've just migrated from Office 97 on Windows 2000 to Office 2007 on Vista.
Although I've found some nice things on Vista (eg searching), I have to
say
I'm appauled at the state of Help, especially in Office, and the loss of
most
context sensitive help. (Beth, in Word, paragraph dialogue box help only
works on the first tab, and then only about 'spacing' and 'indenting'
topics,
not a proper intro to the function as a whole). The whole Office 2007
help
thing looks like it only began development AFTER the release of the
product
suite, and then has been so thinly resourced, you are STILL going
backwards
today.

Please, Microsoft, commit to your users (millions out there who are
wasting
vast amounts of time working out how to do basic things) and implement the
following help infrastructure, AND have the content ready BEFORE you
release
the product! Don't you know you can actually contribute to World Peace?!?

I learned most of what I know about Microsoft applications from Help, and
I
know that if it worked as reliably and had as much care in its
organisation
as it used to, then it would be a more attractive first-port-of-call for
users instead of bothering colleagues and help-desks everywhere.

BACK TO BASICS - A Clearer Vision

* Briing back control-sensitive help (content fully local to machine) via
little "?" buttons in proximity to each control and/or right-click
shortcut
menus (I'll call this 'level-1') - implemented as fast, small tooltip text
with potential for hyperlinks to the help infrastructure

* Bring back dialogue box sensitive help, to the Tab level (content fully
local to machine) via F1 AND a "Help" button in each box (I'll call this
'level-2') - implemented in a separate window that can access the rest of
the
help infrastructure.

* Help from the Application help button on the Application ribbon/toolbar:
the help infrastructure window opens with TOC (content fully local to
machine) and general topics list for that application visible, and can
access
the rest of the help infrastructure (I'll call this 'level-3').

* Help Infrastructu
- Help window layout to provide for:
+ application TOC (turn on/off/alternate space with keyword index)
+ applicatioin keyword index (sorted list) with each term hyperlinked
(turn on/off/alternate space with TOC)
+ Search box and options (always visible)
+ Search results list area can be kept separate from content viewing
area (or in the same space, by option)
+ Plenty of useful hypertext cross-referencing in the help content area
+ Link drop-down tool to 'search for related topics' that is populated,
by currently displayd topic, with significant keywords
+ Place to comment on help, sends back to Microsoft
+ Useful Microsoft on-line support links
+ home, printer, back/forwards, stop, refresh, font, keep-on-top, and
any other browser gismos that are expected
- The help window to offer TOC, and when opened via 'level 2' call, shows
the TOC open at the topic, as well as the topic content.
- Dialogue/Tab context sensitive help (level-2) to always present a
single, well presented topic that offers conceptual info on feature as
well
as duplicating level-1 type help on each control; never to simply return a
search results list.
- Search results to be returned first from local machine, there should be
no delay as the screen fills up waiting for on-line content. As on-line
articles are found, these to arrive later in list, and show in a different
colour so the user knows which articles would be slow, and can look at
local
topics first, to save time.
- Local help content to be pre-indexed so that the new, fast Vista search
capabilities apply
- Natural language search be an option to turn on/off, and then it will
wait for you to type the whole phrase and click 'search' before searching
- If MS want to have an area reserved for their random tips or
'marketing'
then this should be able to be turned off - help should only help the user
and not be used to distract the user!
- We appreciate the up-to-dateness of on-line content, and the
speed/accessibility of off-line content. There is no reason why off-line
content can't be kept fairly up-to-date, as more people use the Microsoft
automatic updates, and off-line help content can be included in updates.
- Modular design of off-line content, to facilitate automatic updating.
- Microsoft to improve resourcing of Help development. Needs people with
librarian skills, especially with thesaurus authorship skills.

I now recommend to my acquaintences who inquire about upgrading their
end-user technology that Microsoft's products are becoming problematic and
harder to use, and to get something else if they feel comfortable enough
to.
I will probably continue to do so until I stop seeing things going
backwards.


"GMc" wrote:

If you clicked a Help (?) button in a Word dialog box in 2003 (&
earlier),
you would get help for that dialog box, including a listing of all the
options, etc. in the dialog box and what they were for/how to use, etc.
In
2007, many (most) times, clicking the Help button takes you to a generic
"Browse Word Help" page. Searching for the name of the dialog box or any
specific option name most often yields a ludicrous list of topics.

Is this a bug in 2007, or is Microsoft turning away from context
sensitive
help?

--
GMc
Phoenix