Patent ID: 8276070
Filing Date: 2012-09-25
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A system for presentation of help files on a computer with an operating system and a display device, the system comprising: presentation-independent help information associated with an application on the computer that indicates how to use the application; a user input mechanism receiving a user help input selecting display of a help feature in the help information; a host inspection feature searching the computer for available rendering applications and building a list of available rendering applications in response to each user help input received during run-time; a help application accessing the presentation-independent help information based on each user help input, assessing the list of available rendering applications, and automatically selecting a rendering application, at runtime, based on content of the presentation-independent help information and capabilities of the available rendering applications, uncovered by the run-time assessment, to display the presentation-independent help information, the selected rendering application displaying a larger portion of features in the presentation-independent help information on the display device than other rendering applications in the list of available rendering applications; a help rendering engine rendering a display of the presentation-independent help information using the selected rendering application; and a computer processor being a functional component of the system and activated by the help application facilitating selecting between available rendering applications.