AutoCAD LT 2000, a computer aided drafting program developed by AutoDesk, contains some interesting and unusual performance support features.    

Figure 1 shows the AutoCAD embedded help window in one of the main dialog screens. A user can open the help window by clicking the Help button. The embedded help window can be closed by clicking the [<< ] button next to the Help button. The embedded help window displays a topic for each element (button and field) in the dialog. The help topic for an element appears when the mouse pointer hovers over the element or the element is selected (given focus) by clicking it or tabbing to it. Figure 1 shows the help topic for the Add button. The mouse pointer is on the button. The help topic window is essentially a web browser displaying an HTML document.  

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows the online help system for AutoCAD LT 2000. It's very similar to most online HTML Help systems, but many topics contain a tabbed window for showing three different types of information for each topic.  The Concepts tab contains conceptual and descriptive information. The procedures tab contains a step by step procedures. The Reference tab contains information that one might normally find in a Reference manual. This method of presentation lets a user quickly switch between the 3 types of information and can reduce the need to scroll. 

Many of the help topics in both the online help system and the embedded help window use an expanding layer feature. For example, in Figure 1 clicking the linking Select first object displays the information in the blue box with the section title "Object Selection" Clicking the link again hides that layer of information. 

Figure 2

2000-03-26