May 2008
Intermediate to advanced
784 pages
22h 5m
English
Content preview from Programming Visual Basic 2008Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Chapter 24. Adding Online Help
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nearly 25 years of programming, it’s that users often need some help to run software on their systems. Programmers need help, too, but getting back to computers: it’s rare that you find a technically conversant user. If you write applications that target businesses and departments within organizations (that’s what I do), you find that the users are very skilled at their jobs, but not necessarily skilled at using a computer. That’s why it is imperative that you make your programs as straightforward to use as possible.
You should also add online help to your applications. These ready documents act as the first wave of support for your users’ software needs. Of course, they seldom read it, and so you (or your technical support staff) will actually become the first wave of support. But it’s somewhat refreshing to be able to say, “Did you check the online help, which covers this issue in detail?”
In this chapter, we’ll discuss the online help options available to you in Visual Basic and focus in on HTML Help 1.x, Microsoft’s standard Windows XP help system.
Windows Online Help Options
Online help has been a part of Windows since its initial release, back in the days when applications and operating systems still shipped with printed manuals and never required more than two floppy disks. I really miss those days. That sense of touch; the cold, smooth pages in my hands. I remember the first Windows software I ever purchased, ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.