KDE Help

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

G'day all.

Is anybody on this list part of the design and 
decision-making level of the KDE project Help?
I don't mean those who have contributed a snippet 
of help for an application, I mean somebody who 
has a say in how the KDE Help looks and works.

Some observations:

1. If I right-click the desktop and ask for help, 
   or if I run the KOffice Workspace (launcher) 
   and ask for help, or if I run just a single 
   application (like KWord), I always get the 
   same help.
   According to me, when I'm looking for help 
   for the current application, I don't need and 
   don't want the help for the entire desktop 
   environment. General tutorials, stuff about 
   GNOME, UNIX man pages, etc., etc.... it's 
   all just clutter, when what I've asked for 
   is KWord help.

2) The "tree of excessive help" in the left pane 
   of the help browser does not go deep enough. 
   It should let me browse right down to the 
   individual page/topic that interests me, 
   which should then be displayed in the right pane.
   Instead, the tree takes me only down as far as 
   the title of the KWord help book. When I click 
   that, I don't get further branches of the tree 
   to browse. Instead, I get the ToC of the manual 
   opening in the *right* pane. When I select a link 
   from that ToC, the associated page opens in that 
   same pane, overwriting the ToC. There's no option 
   to "right-click" and open the links in separate 
   windows. Nope. You can have the now-useless 
   "tree of excessive help" still taking up room in 
   the left pane, but you can't have the ToC/tree 
   of the current document visible while you look at 
   an individual page.

3) The standard "Back" and "Foreward" browser buttons 
   appear to be disabled. If I return from a page to 
   the ToC, and look around a bit, I'd better remember 
   the exact name of that page if I want to get to it 
   again. The usual "Forward" button is there, but it's 
   grayed out and not working.

So, it seems to me that if they MUST display the entire 
help for your entire system at all times, then they 
should at least make that tree open all the way down 
to the individual topic/page link.

Or, if there's a technical reason why the tree of 
books and tutorials is incompatible with the 
ToCs inside the individual books and tutorials, then 
they should allow us the option to keep the ToC in 
view and to open the individual pages in yet-another window.

As well, while a few-dozen-word glossary might be 
nice, I'd much rather have a fully populated "Index" 
tab in its place. The glossary could be just another 
little doc in the tree-of-excessive-help.

And certainly, there can't be a valid excuse for disabling 
the "Back" and "Forward" keys, can there?

On the other hand, perhaps these behaviors are the 
proper expression of the design philosophy and I'm 
just a Windows Help revanchist.

Somebody 'splain it to me.

Thanks,

/kevin

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