When context help does not show you the right context

I don't know about you but it has frustrated me tremendously in the 2012 release and it continues to be a sore point for me in the 2013 release:
Inventor's wiki Help is not bringing me to where I want to be in the Help. I'll give an example.
When I have the Application Options dialog open on the Drawing tab and I want to know what the Enable background updates option exactly means, I hit the context help icon "?".

Fig 1: Looking for Help on the Enable background updates option …

This brings me to the following wiki Help page.

Fig 2: Application options context help but no sign of Enable background updates option

The problem is that this Help page is collapsed and shows me the top level help for the Application Options.
I want help on an item at a much deeper level than that. Of course I can try to expand several sections in an attempt to find what I was looking for but this is time consuming.
So the reason for my blog post is to show you a much snappier method to get to the context help.

The first step is to avoid the wiki help by downloading the full Inventor 2013 Help and storing it on your local drive.
If you have installed Inventor in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2013, place the local help in the folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2013\Local Help.

However after doing all this, when you press F1, Inventor still brings you to the wiki.

This is because Inventor's Help reacts differently depending on whether you are connected to the Internet or not

• With internet connection, F1 brings you to http://wikihelp.autodesk.com
• Without internet connection, F1 brings you to the help on your local disk drive

Assuming that most us would not want to give up their Internet connection J, here are the steps to prevent Inventor from searching for the wiki (even if you have a working internet connection).

• locate the file called HelpIds.xml in the Inventor Bin folder (the default location is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2013\Bin)
• Open HelpIds.xml in any text editor
• Search for the section that contains the string "UseOnline"

  <URL

        UseOnline="1"

        Redirect="REDIRECT_"

        OnlinePrefix="http://"

        OnlineWIKI="wikihelp.autodesk.com/?adskContextId="

        OnlineSearchWIKI ="wikihelp.autodesk.com/search?q="

        OnlineSuffix="&amp;language=&amp;release=&amp;product="

        OfflinePrefix="file:///"

        OfflineHelp="Local Help\contexthelp\"

        ErrorPage="Local Help\HELP_INFORMATION"

        OfflineSuffix=".htm"

        />

• Change the UseOnline value from the default 1 to 0.

  <URL

        UseOnline="0"

        Redirect="REDIRECT_"

        OnlinePrefix="http://"

        OnlineWIKI="wikihelp.autodesk.com/?adskContextId="

        OnlineSearchWIKI ="wikihelp.autodesk.com/search?q="

        OnlineSuffix="&amp;language=&amp;release=&amp;product="

        OfflinePrefix="file:///"

        OfflineHelp="Local Help\contexthelp\"

        ErrorPage="Local Help\HELP_INFORMATION"

        OfflineSuffix=".htm"

        />

• Save the xml file

Once the local help kicks in, the context help ends up much closer to where you want to be than with the wiki help.
In my previous example of the Drawing Application Options, you will land in the Drawing Tab section of the Application Option help.

Fig 3: Help shown much closer to the context (before expansion)

It is just a matter of expanding the Capacity/Performance section to see the help on Enable background updates.

Fig 4: Help after expansion

Purists will say that the local help is static and does not benefit from the continuous updates that the wiki help receives.
Personally, I can live with that limitation. I prefer a speedy out-of-date version over a slow up-to-date version.
I know where I can find the latest and greatest Help if need be…

Bob

Comments

[Dan Margulius]

Hi Bob,
If you are frustrated what can we the users feel?
There are things in Inventor that haven't been updated since version 2010. I am talking about UI consistency,features that are not updated for years like sheet metal and stress analysis. Commands that go to Fusion instead of going to Inventor.Help system you mentioned. I think you have there all kind of kids that play with the software API and don't understand what the users need.I hope I don't come to harsh on them and you get my point. Take a look at the beta site how many enhancement requests where made and how many got inside the new version maybe 4 or 5.
Regards,
Dan

[Bob Van der Donck]

I hear you Mark. And don't get me wrong I think release 2013 brought very nice new features like Equation curves, Control vertex splines, 3D Sketch Line Align to Plane
, Improved Assembly mirror, Hatch clipping for drawing text, Thin wall meshing etc.

But like you sometimes I wish we can spend more resources to perfection "old" functionality like Imate Match lists, virtual intersection dimensioning or easier navigating to the workspace. I bet everyone has its secret or not so secret Top 10 list.
Like always it is a trade-off between creating new functionality and modifying existing functionality. And in that battle for resources, the new stuff often wins.
Bob