Developer Poll: Uptake of Orbiter "Help" feature

[martins]

Out of interest: how many orbiter developers have used the scenario or vessel "Help" feature to provide ingame documentation about an addon vessel or scenario (e.g. for documenting vessel controls, procedures, mission objectives, etc.)?

For those who haven't, what are the reasons? Should this feature be modified in any way to make it more useful?

 

[Urwumpe]

I have used it already, but I didn't release much since it exists. There is little that speaks against using it, except that everyone hates documentation.

I would be the first to support having on-line help in SSU and the last to volunteer to do it.

 

[Izack]

Not in anything that I've released, but I have the key-configuration for an unfinished complicated vessel stored this way. However, it's really just a placeholder as I work out a more intuitive cockpit panel; at that point the in-game help will become much less useful. Otherwise, the things that I've released are far too simple to even require that kind of documentation.

 

[jedidia]

Haven't used it, majorly because I didn't get around yet to even write an official manual for my add-ons... I think the feature is fine as it is though, as soon as we start using it... :shifty:

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Never used it myself, didn't know it was there in truth, always thought that's what the docs folder was for. Plus the standard method of docu seems to the ubiquitous PDF.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Never used it myself, didn't know it was there in truth, always thought that's what the docs folder was for. Plus the standard method of docu seems to the ubiquitous PDF.

I would second that. Word 2010 is much too slow for me.

 

[N_Molson]

I must say I never liked very much the "F1" Windows help system.

 

[Urwumpe]

I would second that. Word 2010 is much too slow for me.

Why Word 2010? :facepalm:

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Why Word 2010? :facepalm:

The whole office 2010 package is a disaster, very poorly done, and quite slow. PDF is faster, besides noone needs to edit documentation usually

 

[Urwumpe]

The whole office 2010 package is a disaster, very poorly done, and quite slow. PDF is faster, besides noone needs to edit documentation usually

Yes, but what has Word 2010 to do with the Orbiter Online Help feature? It is based on HTMLHelp.

 

[dbeachy1]

O-F Staff Note: Let's stay on-topic please, all. This thread is not about Microsoft Word. Thanks.

 

[hedzup456]

Sounds stupid but how do I access it? F1 is inside/outside isn't it?
~Hedz

 

[martins]

"Info" button on the Launchpad scenario tab, or Alt-F1 during the simulation.

 

[FordPrefect]

I can't speak or vote for him, but I do know that Tschachim, head of the Project Apollo - NASSP team did awful lot of illustrated documentation in the vessel help feature for the Apollo Manuals and Checklists, including:

Launch Checklist Liftoff Control Configuration (preset)
CSM RCS Checklist
CSM SPS Checklist
LM Descent RCS Checklist
LM Descent Checklist
LM Descent Abort Checklist
LM EVA Checklist
LM Ascent RCS Checklist
LM Ascent Checklist
CSM EVA Checklist
CM RCS Checklist
Command Module Reentry
CSM Instrument Panel Manual
LM Instrument Panel Manual
Using the DSKY Apollo Guidance Computer

...and probably more.

I like it a lot - having that available within the simulation! :thumbup:

:tiphat:

 

[orb]

"Info" button on the Launchpad scenario tab, or Alt-F1 during the simulation.

Additionally, add-on developers can bring it on screen by calling "oapiOpenHelp" API function or "open_help" LUA function in simulation, and "oapiOpenLaunchpadHelp" API function when in the launchpad, so some add-ons can automate displaying of the help (or some checklist page contained in the help file for the launched scenario), for example when the simulation starts, or when user presses some other button (like a button in cockpit, which wasn't meant to be pressed at that given time ).

 

[dansteph]

For me the major problem is the lack of visibility and accessibility of this help.
Also the chm system is completely outdated, hard to create and not very readable.

Many peoples didn't even noticed them. So I didn't considered them as a good
help system for users and instead I used my own. (HUD or message in-game
to make user aware of the key or help, key "H", using oapiAnnotation or HUD
display, eventually external help advertised by internal system...
All this is not very coder friendly, one must know "how to", a built in system
would be welcome).

If it doesn't jump in face of user so you get a 99% rate awareness of where is the
help or doc I consider it's not good. At least an inline display of help or keyboard
key would be very welcome, but this must reach the "99%" rate else it's useless.

for format I prefer html which is very versatile, it can be hand edited
or coded, displayed in many place (even in dialog) and at worse everyone have a browser.

For internal help, txt file with a basic "BBS" tag system for color do wonder for me.
Actually everyone know bbs tags.

 

[N_Molson]

I agree on that, it should be easier to write the help files.

 

[dansteph]

For me a great improvement would be first to allow in the right scenario panel more than simple text.

Old scenario text would still work but we could also link to html file or eventually allow BBS style tag
with [img [b [i [url . Technically display on dialog could be done using rich edit control or HTML control.
(I have many C++ routine for doing all such things if interested, included BBS search/replace routines)

Also the right panel might be fixed to a minimum of say 480/500.

This would give much more interesting scenario description and allow link to documentation or full scenario
story, img to explain things and much better presentation.

The result would look like this:

It could also allow such things as well as plain old texts:

 

[Urwumpe]

I second this. A simple HTML 1.0 viewer would be already fine.

 

[martins]

Ok, that sounds like a good idea. Does windows provide a html viewer control for dialogs (I haven't seen one), or do I need an external package? It would be even better if the viewer allowed the sources to be packed up in chm or zip files to keep everything compact and avoid too many files.

I guess an alternative would be an embedded PDF viewer that supports hyperlinks, but I don't know any of these either.

Edit: thinking about it, I can probably use the Html Help API to embed a chm viewer.