On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 9:29 AM, Michael B. Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> So…shall all the “what’s this?” buttons go away?

  It seems like 90% of the "What's This" help from Microsoft is
useless anyway.  You do "What's This" on a checkbox labeled
"Reticulate Splines", and the help is "Enable this option to have your
splines be reticulated".  Gee, thanks!

  I suspect help might be best published as a set of plain old HTML
files (one per topic) in a directory tree.  That works online or off.
It can be searched by Window/Google/whatever Search, and viewed using
any browser.  You can link the "Help" button in any window/screen/etc.
to any given page.  Updates to individual files are easy.
Distributing the full kit can be a .ZIP file.  The one tricky part is
printing a full manual; you'd need something to print each file in
order.

  Proprietary help formats are *so* last-century.

-- Ben

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