Chapter 8: Getting Help

In this Chapter, you find out how to take advantage of Mac OS X’s built-in help systems. Figuratively or literally, anyone who has ever used a computer at one time or another needs help. When the need arises Mac OS X provides several types of built-in assistance. The principal help system is integrated into the OS, and the contents are displayed through a browser, aptly named the Help Viewer. The Help Viewer application provides explanations for most basic tasks. Another type of assistance within Mac OS X is help tags. When provided, help tags, are labels that are displayed when the mouse is pointed at various GUI elements. Typically these GUI elements are unlabeled buttons such as the ones found in AppleWorks or Microsoft Office’s toolbars. Another form of built-in assistance is the man pages. Man pages provide help with the command-line tasks and are accessed through the Terminal application. In addition to the built-in help systems of Mac OS, many applications also provide their own built-in help. If all else fails, you can always break out the manuals or visit a products support site, if one is provided. Let’s take a closer look at the various Mac OS X help systems.

Using the Help Viewer Application

The Help Viewer is the main source of general how-to help for Mac OS X. It also provides separate sections of specialized help on Apple technologies, such as AppleScript and QuickTime. In addition, some applications add their own sections of specialized help to the Help Viewer. In the Help Viewer, help is available by browsing a table of contents or by searching for words that describe the help you need. Some of the articles include links that you click to see related material as well as shortcuts to System Preference panes or OS X–included applications related to the assistance being sought. All the available help sections are listed in an table of contents in the Help Viewer, as explained in the following paragraphs.

To display onscreen help in the Help Viewer application, select Help from the menu bar or click the Help button. The application you’re using determines what you see in the Help Viewer. You may see a list of all available help contents or a list of help article titles or a single help article related to the product in which help is being sought.

As a convenience, some windows include a Help button that you can click to get help for that window. When available, the Help button is the round button with a question mark on it. Clicking a Mac OS X Help button opens the Help Viewer application and displays a relevant help article or a list of relevant articles. For example, while using the Print dialog in a Mac OS X application, click the Help button to display the article about using the Print dialog.

Getting help within Mac OS X

While using the Finder, the Help Viewer provides the ability to browse a list of common Mac help topics. It also provides the ability to see what’s new to Panther (Mac OS 10.3), help with top customer issues, and a starting point of assistance for those who are new to Mac OS. To use the help viewer follow these steps:

1. If you’re not currently using the Finder, switch to it. For example, click any Finder window or click the Finder icon at the end of the Dock.

2. Choose Help Mac OS Help to display a list of Mac Help topics in the Help Viewer, as shown in Figure 8-1.

   
   Figure 8-1: You can also open the Help Viewer application within the Finder using the key combination Command-?.

Browsing Mac OS Help

The Help Viewer application has a pseudo table of contents titled Browse Mac OS Help. The contents are based on subject matter that Apple has determined are the most commonly queried Mac OS X help issues. To view the list of central topics of help, click Browse Mac OS Help on the right side of the Help Viewer window. A list of help topics included by default with Mac OS X appears. Figure 8-2 shows the contents of Browse Mac OS Help.

Figure 8-2: Browse Mac OS Help displays a consolidated list of help topics that are based on most common and frequent help inquiries.

Getting help for the active application

If the application you’re using provides onscreen help via the Help Viewer, you can generally display this help by choosing a command from the Help menu. For example, while using Sherlock choose Help Sherlock Help to display a list of Sherlock-related topics in the Help Viewer, as shown in Figure 8-3.

Figure 8-3: Opening the Help Viewer from Sherlock shows Sherlock-specific help. As with the Finder, you can also open the Help Viewer application within the Sherlock using the key combination Command-?.

Browsing Help Viewer links

The way that the Help Viewer works is similar to the way that a Web browser works. The blue underlined words in Help Viewer are links that you can click to see related material. For example, if you click on Browse Mac OS Help in the Help Viewer, while in the Finder, a list of relevant articles will be displayed. Clicking an underlined article’s title displays the actual article. Articles themselves may also contain links to view related material as well as shortcuts to System Preference panes or OS X–included applications related to the assistance being sought. Figure 8-4 shows an example of searching for the words keychain and password with the second link selected, and Figure 8-5 shows that help article.

Figure 8-4: Click an underlined link to see related material in the Help Viewer.

Figure 8-5: Depending upon the Help article, it may contain shortcuts to System Preference or OS X–included applications related to the assistance being sought.

Using Help Viewer Quick Clicks

Quick Clicks are links in articles that take you to many places inside and outside the Help Viewer. If the author of the help article writes clearly, you should have a good idea about where the link takes you. The possibilities include the following:

• A link may show you another article in the Help Viewer window.

• An Open... link probably opens the application that the article describes.

• A Tell me more link displays a list of articles that are related to the current article.

• A More link at the bottom of a list of article titles takes you to a continuation of the list.

• A Go to the website link shows you a related Web site in your Web browser. Other links may also go to Web sites, which is especially likely if the link includes an Internet address or is near an Internet address in the help article. However, clicking an Internet address that is not underlined in a help article does nothing. Text that is not underlined is not a link in the Help Viewer.

Tip

Links visited since you opened the Help Viewer are red instead of blue.

Retrieving Help from the Internet

At times, the Help Viewer must retrieve help articles from the Internet. For example, an application may initially have only its most popular help articles installed on your computer and keep less commonly read articles on the Internet. If you click a link to an article that’s on the Internet, the Help Viewer automatically caches it on your computer. If you later want to read an article that the Help Viewer has already retrieved from the Internet, the Help Viewer displays the cached article on your computer. If there is an updated version of the article, the Help Viewer checks the Internet and will retrieve the newer version. The Help viewer also adds additional articles as they become available. Of course, the Help Viewer can retrieve articles from the Internet only if your computer has an Internet connection. If your computer has a dial-up connection to the Internet or you must go through an authentication procedure to make an Internet connection, the Help Viewer displays a dialog asking whether you want to make the connection.

If your computer isn’t connected to the Internet, and the Help Viewer needs to retrieve an article, you must approve the connection.

Navigating using the Help Viewer buttons

Besides clicking links, you can go places in the Help Viewer by clicking buttons.

• Click the Back button (left-arrow) to go back to the previous page in the Help Viewer.

• After going back, click the Forward button (right-arrow) to go forward.

• Click the home button to return to the opening screen of the topic being viewed within the Help Viewer application and see its list of available help selections.

Searching within the Help Viewer

If you’re looking for help on a specific subject and don’t want to browse through links until you find it, use the search function to query for the help you need. The Help Viewer uses Sherlock search technology; to do a query, you type some words that are associated with a subject you need help with in the Ask a Question search field at the top of the Help Viewer window, and then press the Return key on your keyboard. When typing words to search for, you can include special characters to describe the help you need more precisely. Table 8-1 describes these special characters.

Table 8-1: Special Characters for Help Viewer Searching

Character	Meaning	Search example	Search results
+	and	desktop + Finder	This example finds articles that include both “desktop” and “Finder.”
|	or	desktop | Finder	This example finds articles that include either “desktop” or “Finder.”
!	not	desktop ! Finder	This example finds articles that include “desktop” but exclude “Finder.”
( )	grouping	picture + (Finder | desktop)	This example finds articles that include “picture” and either “desktop” or “Finder.”

Tip

If your search words don’t turn up the help articles you want, try different forms or combinations of the words you used or use other words to describe the topic you are looking for.