Importance

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Abstract

A method and system in accordance with the present invention allows the help information to be shared independent of its invocation method, so that the information can be displayed in both integrated user assistance mechanisms and traditional online help windows. The method includes receiving an invocation of one of a plurality of user assistance mechanisms; and collecting help information from an information source, the information source comprising a structure indicating what portion of the information source is to be displayed based upon the invoked user assistance mechanism. With a method and system in accordance with the present invention, help authors place a metastructure or secondary structure in the information source. This secondary structure indicates which parts of the information source should be displayed by that particular integrated user assistance mechanism. A method and system in accordance with the present invention reads the information source and secondary structure and then takes the information defined by the secondary structure and passes it to the integrated user assistance mechanism to be displayed. For example, the same text information can be retrieved from one source and displayed in the following three places--a traditional online help window, inline text in a software dialog, inside a pop-up window over a control. With the method and system in accordance with the present invention, the author only has to maintain one source, so that both the integrated user assistance mechanism and the traditional online help will contain the accurate information.

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First Claim