Standardized Help links

Development
1

There are a variety of features that have no link to wiki help pages. Adding a few standard Help links would help reduce new user frustration.

Adding a consistent Help access for features that do not yet have a URL would benefit from also setting up a failback URL.

For instance, built-in view modes could failback to the View Category glossary entry and add-on view modes could failback to the Plugin glossary entry

These could be linked to a Help toolbar icon (introduced in the Experimental CardView modes by @cdhorn), where the target URL is updated each time the View mode changes. (Although consistently placing the Help toolbar button to the left of the Configuration toolbar button would ensure it wouldn’t be shuffled off the right edge of the toolbar AND make it easier to describe both those buttons.)
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The Report Selection dialog and Tool Selection dialog launched (from the toolbar) are underused. But adding a Help link (or button the bottom bar) to those dialogs could add value?

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Likewise, the Plugin Manager “Info” dialogs for individual plugins could offer Help for ALL plugins… even for those that present no Interface where a Help button could reside:

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Help buttons for Addons could failback to point to the Gramps Addon List. Built-in could failback to point to a new clearinghouse wikipage for built-in plugins.

There are a variety of types of plugins/addons, including:

  • Database - add support for another database backend.
  • Exporter - adds additional file format export options to Gramps
  • Gramplet - adds a new Gramplet to Gramps, which can be activated by right-clicking on the Gramplet View
  • Gramps View (mode) - adds a new view mode to the list of views available within a View Category
  • Importer - adds additional file format import options to Gramps
  • Map Service - adds new mapping options to Gramps
  • Plugin lib - libraries that are present giving extra functionality. Can add, replace and or modifies built-in Gramps options.
  • Quickreport/Quickview - a view that you can run by right-clicking on object, or if a person quickview, then through the Quick View Gramplet
  • Report - adds a new output report / includes Website - output a static genealogy website based on your Gramps Family Tree data.
  • Rule - adds new filter rules.
  • Tool - adds a utility that helps process data from your family tree.Tools
    Reports
2

Certainly underused by me; I never tried them until just now! :slightly_smiling_face:

Maybe so, but if those dialogs are indeed underused, would it be better to have development resources devoted to creating new functionality instead of adding more seldom-used code that need to be maintained?

Could an alternative way of achieving your goal be to make the Help menu include additional items that vary according to the context of the currently active window? Then users would know that’s the only place they ever need to look for help.

3

Report & Tools would be unmanageably large as contextual Help menus. Those items are always valid. In addition, contextual menus don’t lend themselves to touchscreen interfaces.

The other problem with contextual menus is that new users often want help figuring out how to find the feature. With a contextual menu, you have to find the feature to access Help finding the feature.

The reasoning behind leveraging the Report Selector, Tool Selector & Plugin Manager Info is it would open access to Help without needing to rework every part of the interface. And, since the need to access Help is expected to be be infrequent, it shouldn’t add too much noise to the interface.