3.4.1 Types of Help Text
Following IBM's SAA/CUA guidelines, help text should be available within all applications for any selection field, selection list or entry field. Help text provides quick and easy access to information for users. Adding help text to LANSA applications is a very easy task since LANSA automatically controls handling of the Help key. Because help text can be added or changed without any recompiling, you can have the users add or modify help text and it is available immediately. Help text is another example of the benefits of LANSA's Active Repository.
LANSA supports different types of help text:
- Field Help in the .
- Component Help in the .
- Process Help in the .
- Function Help in the .
Again, all of these levels are automatically handled by LANSA and are cursor sensitive, i.e. the cursor location will determine which help text is displayed. LANSA includes a help index to allow users to locate and display both process and function level help.
LANSA also supports both end-user and technical help text. End-user help will be available to all end-users running applications; however, technical help is only displayed to developers. Using will use both technical and end-user help text to create both the technical and user guides for your system.
If the LANSA Modeling tools were used, the system analyst's notes are automatically transferred to the appropriate field, process and/or function level help text.