Abstract:
An integrated online information system includes an online help engine for requesting and receiving a documentation and/or help information, an address database for storing addresses of the documentation and/or help information, and a browser for receiving the documentation and/or help information in a network architecture corresponding to an address applied to the browser.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention generally relates to documentation and help systems for computer-based systems. 
     Today, most computer-based systems (data processing systems) provide some kind of written documentation and, in combination thereto, a help system. The documentation generally represents the aids provided for understanding the structure and intended uses of the system or its components, mainly describing the requirements, capabilities, limitations, design, operation, and maintenance of the system. The help system generally provides one or more display images that describe how to use an application or how to do a system operation. In most cases, the help system is started by a help key as a function key that displays a help text when it is pressed, or by selecting a help menu describing alternative actions when a user encounters a problem with the system or application. 
     The documentation may be embodied by printed manuals and/or as online documentation. The online documentation may be stored within the computer system or onto a server in a network structure, e.g. in a public network such as the Internet or in an internal proprietary network (intranet), allowing navigation within the documentation by so-called “hyperlinks” which link documentation pages stored on different locations in either the same or different servers. The online documentation typically provides a document reader for reading specified documentation files which generally do not coincide with such information used for the help system. 
     In most cases, the help system is implemented as an online help function in the computer system. Online help systems provide the user of the computer system with some assistance when performing a particular task. The online help systems may be context sensitive, meaning that an information requested depends on the context within the current application. The context sensitive online help system enables the user to quickly access help information, for example, by pressing a dedicated help key while a mouse cursor is pointing to an area of interest. 
     Online as used herein means that the respective information is accessible directly by the computer system and, e.g., while an application is running on the computer system. 
     FIG. 1 shows a help system for a computer system as known in the art. A display  10  within the computer system displays a mouse cursor  20  pointing on an area of interest  30 . A dedicated help key  40  is embodied, e.g., within a terminal  50 . On request by the help key  40  over a line  45 , a help engine  60  provides a help information via a line  65  to the computer system which again may be displayed by the display  10 . The provided help information may be context sensitive meaning that the help information is related to the specific context of the area of interest  30  as pointed out by the mouse cursor  20  (as indicated by arrow  67 ). The help engine  60  searches for the help information by applying a context related signal on a line  68  to a database  70  and receiving the help information on a line  75 . 
     In most cases, the database  70  is implemented as an indexed database, meaning that an access path to a file  80  within the indexed database  70  is built on key values, and a record  90  in the file  80  is identified by a key field. The record  90  contains an information page comprising information requested as the help information. The position of the record  90  is recorded in an index as a separate portion of the file  80 . The indexed database  70  contains the indices as well as the thereto corresponding text information within the respective records of the file  80 , however in a compiled data format. The indexed database  70  usually receives its information from text files  110  generally compiled by a compiler  120 . 
     The information page of the record  90  might also comprise an indexed cross reference  100  to one or more other records. Cross references  100  such as links to other related information pages are handled by the help engine  60  and are stored and maintained within the database  70 . 
     One major disadvantage of today&#39;s solution is that the documentation is strictly separated from the help functionality. The help information might give a brief description of a particular task and it is up to the user to look into the appropriate section of the documentation to get more information about the underlying concepts etc. 
     Another disadvantage is that today&#39;s online help systems generally use some kind of proprietary help compiler  120  needed to translate the textual representation of the help information into the text file  110  to a compiled form which is suitable for the proprietary context sensitive help system in the indexed database  70 . This implies that customizing the help information requires access to and knowledge about the respective proprietary compiler  120 . 
     In automated test equipment (ATE) systems, it has been found particularly difficult to use online help functions or online documentation, since ATE systems are generally not used in standard applications predefined by the supplier of the ATE system, but in very specific customer-oriented applications defined by the user of the ATE system. This makes it quite difficult for the supplier of the ATE system to provide a document useful for a plurality of customers. 
     Further more, most of the knowledge about the processes to be executed by the ATE systems and the environment wherein the ATE system is to be used, which is to be outlined in a documentation and/or required for help systems, is generally not owned by the supplier of the ATE system, but by the user thereof. In that case, the user of the ATE system needs to ‘write’ an own (customer internal) user documentation describing the use of the ATE system in the respective customer&#39;s environment. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is an object of the invention to provide an improved documentation and help system for computer-based systems in general, and in particular for ATE systems. 
     According to the invention, the documentation and help system is combined in an integrated online information system comprising an online help engine for requesting and receiving documentation and help information, an address database for storing addresses of documentation and help information, and a browser for receiving documentation and help information in a network architecture corresponding to an address applied to the browser. 
     The online information system assists users of the data processing system in quickly retrieving any information at any level of detail. Integrating the documentation and help system also ensures consistency between both types of information. 
     The integrated online information system according to the invention allows to format a text and to process links to other sources of information avoiding the disadvantages of using proprietary formats in a proprietary online help information as known in the art. Thus, it is easy for users to extend and maintain the information provided by the computer or software system vendor to include best practices, personalized examples, links to other information found in the network, etc. In an ATE environment, it is possible to provide direct links to test related design information such as device data sheets, schematics, etc. 
     In a preferred embodiment, the invention also allows the user to directly access and maintain the online documentation (which can also be used for online help purposes) by means of the browser without requiring an access to the online help engine or to other software tools. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     Other objects and many of the attendant advantages of the present invention will be readily appreciated and become better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considering in connection with the accompanied drawings, in which: 
     FIG. 1 shows a help system for a computer system as known in the art, and 
     FIG. 2 shows a preferred embodiment of a documentation and help system for computer-based systems according to the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     FIG. 2 shows a preferred embodiment of a documentation and help system for computer-based systems according to the invention. On request by the help key  40  over the line  45 , an online help engine  160  provides an online help information to the computer-based systems. 
     The online help engine  160  searches for the online help information by applying a search signal on a line  170  to an address database  180  and receiving therefrom a respective help address corresponding to the search signal. 
     The provided online help information is preferably context sensitive meaning that the online help information is related to the specific context of the area of interest  20  as pointed out by the mouse cursor  20  (as indicated by arrow  67 ). In that case, the search signal on line  170  is a context related search signal. 
     The online help engine  160  uses the help address received from the address database  180  for instructing over a line  190  a browser  200 . The browser  200  searches in a therewith connected network  210  for a specific help document  220  corresponding to the received help address and receives, if available, the help document  220  or a copy therefrom. It is to be understood that the term ‘network’ as used herein means any arrangement of nodes and connecting branches for connecting data stations, and can comprise a plurality of individual network systems, however connected anyhow. 
     The browser  200  may apply the received help document  220  or a copy therefrom to the online help engine  160 , which again applies the help document  220  or the copy therefrom as the online help information to the computer system, e.g., via the line  65  to the computer system which again may be displayed by the display  10 . However, in a preferred embodiment, the browser  200  directly applies the received help document  220  or the copy therefrom to the computer system and thus e.g. to the display  10 , as indicated by arrow  225 . In that case the browser  200  allows to directly view the received help document  220  on the display  10  without requiring an additional support by the online help engine  160  or by other tools. 
     The help document  220  may also comprise a reference  230  comprising an address of another help document  240  which might be related to the content of the help document  220 . The reference  230  is preferably embodied by a standard network hyper-link, e.g. as an universal resource locator (URL), which can directly be processed by the browser  200 . 
     The address database  180  comprises addresses of help documents, preferably in a form which can be directly processed by the browser  200  such as an appropriate universal resource locator (URL). In case of a context sensitive help, the address database  180  further comprises context relevant references in order to refer a specific help document to a specific context. In other words, the address database  180  comprises addresses of such information required within the documentation and help system to provide the requested documents within the network  210 . 
     The addresses stored in the address database  180  can be addresses pre-given by the supplier of the computer-based system as well as addresses determined by the user or owner of the system. This allows to create a customized documentation and help system, which is particularly desirable in ATE applications. 
     In a preferred embodiment, a customizing of the documentation and help system can be accomplished by directly editing and configuring the help documents and by including references  230  into the help documents. This can be preferably done by means of a specific browser  200  allowing to directly edit documents. Using for example the WWW&#39;s capability to format text and process hyper-links avoids the disadvantages of using proprietary formats for the online help information. Thus, it&#39;s easy for users to extend and maintain the information provided by the system vendor to include best practices, personalized examples, links to other information found on the WWW, etc. It also allows the user to distribute the online documentation help over a global network. The documentation can be easily globally maintained and updated. It also allows the user to access and maintain the online documentation (which is also used as an online help) without having access to the software system itself (by using any standard web browser and/or web page authoring system). 
     The network  210  might be a publicly accessible network such as the world wide web (WWW) or Internet, or a publicly not accessible internal proprietary network such as an Intranet. The browser  200  might be a customized browser or a standard browser (e.g., a WWW browser) as known in the art. 
     The online help engine  160  does not necessarily need to be an entirely new help engine and can be based on the help engine  60  as known in the art. Because most existing (proprietary) help systems provide means to intercept events fired when pressing the help system&#39;s help key  40 , it is possible to integrate the online help engine  160  which preferably maps the position of the mouse pointer (preferably the name or an identifier of a widget where the pointer is located at) to an URL of the address database  180  and passes that URL to the dedicated or standard web browser  200  used to view the online documentation and navigate therein. 
     The online help engine  160  can be used for help function purposes as well as for documentation purposes. The online help engine  160  allows to read respective documents, e.g. help document  220 , whenever required. It allows the user to access and maintain the online documentation, which is also used as an online help, without requiring an access to other software tools. This is preferably accomplished by means of the browser  200  which can be a standard web browser and/or web page authoring system. 
     In a preferred embodiment, the browser  200  can be used and applied by the user completely independent of the online help engine  160  and therefore of an application using or starting the online help engine  160 . The browser  200  provides a stand alone tool for reading, writing, and configuring documents required for help and documentation purposes, whenever required. It allows the user to directly access and maintain the online documentation, which is also used as an online help, without requiring an access to other software tools.