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Crash Pointe
Registered User
Join date: 26 Aug 2006
Posts: 14
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10-21-2006 09:24
There needs to be some kind of visually accessible help feature for newcomers. Few approaches would be adding a "Help" icon to the bottom bar or some kind of symbolic help icon on the screen somewhere that can be toggled visisble or not via preferences.
I am getting the impression that newcomers have no clue whatsoever about pressing F1 or accessing it via the Help menu. They are always asking questions that are already explained in the help guide.
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SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
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10-21-2006 13:47
Pressing F1 for help is an old and broadly used convention. For instance, it works in Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Dreamweaver, SnagIt, Notepad, and most any program I've ever used in Windows.
The Help menu item is as visually accesible as a thing can be. It's displayed on the main menu bar, in a manner similar to many many other programs. Click on it and it brings up a list with the F1 Help, the Knowledgebase, Live Help, and the L-blog. The first item presents the keystroke for producing "Second Life Help".
People do of course ask questions that are covered in the F1 help and the knowledgebase.
If you have an icon for help, like a question mark, the information that appears isn't going to be useful if the user's reading ability isn't sufficient to read and understand the word Help in the menu. If they don't have the mental oomph to figure that Help would be a good thing to click on when they have a question, they are unlikely to be able to follow the information and instructions the help system provides.
I think the reason people don't use the help provided has more to do with laziness than anything else. They hope they can save effort by not reading the instructions and asking only what they have a question about.
Looking at the Help menu does make me think the decision to remove the link to the forums needs to be re-examined. They didn't close the forums, the content creation forums and resident answers forum are extremely good places to ask questions or read FAQS at, so why not have a link to them there?
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So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to
http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne
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http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.
Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard,
Robin, and Ryan
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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10-22-2006 12:11
From: SuezanneC Baskerville Pressing F1 for help is an old and broadly used convention. For instance, it works in Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Dreamweaver, SnagIt, Notepad, and most any program I've ever used in Windows. On Macs there is a "Help" key. In Second Life the "Help" key switches you from "insert mode" to a really bizzarre "replace mode" that I can't comprehend anyone actually using (even on Windows... it does NOT behave like replace in any application I've ever used), because the key in that location on a PC keyboard is "Insert". |