Ug! Apple Help IS THE WORST

[MacLuv]

I've said it before and now I have to bitch again... Apple help totally SUX... !!!

Searching through the help stuff takes forever, and now when I click on the help files themselves, NOTHING HAPPENS!!!

[MacLuv]

hey, i wasn't finished with that post, sorry..

APPLE, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX THAT DAMN HELP APPLICATION!!!

Without manuals I'm stuck having to use it, and there's no point!!! I'm hunting on the internet for information already stuck in my computer!

What is the format that the Apple help app uses?
Is it translated XML? Is there any way to open help documents with another application?

[edX]

i absolutely agree with you here. before you seemed to be bitching about how help center pulled down which is neither here nor there as far as i am concerned. but as far it being useful once you've got it mounted, forget it. occasionally it actually finds you an answer you need, but mostly it just sends you on wild goose chases with no more information than an intermediate user already knows.

Please apple, bring back real paper printed manuals, even if you have to add another $5 to the price. or at least make them available for $10 or less.

[MacLuv]

Originally posted by Ed Spruiell
i absolutely agree with you here. before you seemed to be bitching about how help center pulled down which is neither here nor there as far as i am concerned. but as far it being useful once you've got it mounted, forget it. occasionally it actually finds you an answer you need, but mostly it just sends you on wild goose chases with no more information than an intermediate user already knows.

Please apple, bring back real paper printed manuals, even if you have to add another $5 to the price. or at least make them available for $10 or less.

Yeah before I might have been bitching about the drawer situation, but now that I'm dedicated to using OS X full-time (which won't be entirely true if somebody sends me a Quark file and needs it back as a Quark file)... but anyway since my last moan I've learned a few things...

A lot of people are bitching about the help viewer, and Apple really needs to do something about it... i'm sure it wasn't a top priority but they really need to fix that sucker up now. Right now it seems to search for things fine, but when I click on the links I'm brought back to the splash page. Links presented in frames (as an index, for example) don't work... you click and wait and nothing happens.

Workarounds have been suggested from removing the help cache files to removing certain applications' help files. The Dreamweaver help files that were placed there upon installation are actually HTML files, which means that help viewer is a really crappy browser of sorts. The problem is that applications like Dreamweaver default to the help viewer and not a "real" browser and I have yet to find a solution to that. More help for anyone interested can be found at Mac OS Hints...

Oh yeah, Ed... don't kill the trees! They love us! Manuals and books are BAAAAAAD...

[MacLuv]

The problem I'm talking about is how help viewer handles FRAMES from an html document... the fact is it doesn't handle frames, or at least my help viewer doesn't.

When a document is in full frame, it works fine, however, if you load a help document with frames, such as Dreamweaver help or FileMaker Pro help, you're screwed. There's something that the Apple .help files must have that the regular html files don't... either way there's a bug.

I h8 bugs...

[AppMan]

I prefer granny smith apples.

[edX]

Oh yeah, Ed... don't kill the trees! They love us! Manuals and books are BAAAAAAD...

i'm probably a bigger environmentalist than most but i still see the value in having paper printed products. i would be fine with printing them on recycled paper and keeping the price under $15.

and i am not sure anymore if we are complaining about the same thing or now. my gripe is with the way it is organized (or lack there of) and the lack of real continuaty in the sections. and the fact that most of the info is far too simplistic. if there is more advanced stuff in there that would be useful me, i probably will never find it because i don't know which word to search for. some of their link titles are even confusing if you try to use them as a general guide.

i just want a real manual like came with all my previous macs and systems.

[MacLuv]

Originally posted by Ed Spruiell
my gripe is with the way it is organized (or lack there of) and the lack of real continuaty in the sections. and the fact that most of the info is far too simplistic. if there is more advanced stuff in there that would be useful me, i probably will never find it because i don't know which word to search for. some of their link titles are even confusing if you try to use them as a general guide.

no, the gripe i'm having isn't with content but context... the navigation system has a problem with frames as I've mentioned and it alltogether isn't stable at all...