foCoach Control

The Windows Help system (WinHelp) available in Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5.1 provides two new features that enable you to create interactive help files. Authorable Buttons are command buttons that you can put on any help topic. When the user presses the button a WinHelp macro gets executed. A new kind of macro is the TCard macro. TCard macros can send messages back to your application in response to the user pressing an authorable button.

foCoach puts these pieces together to link your application to its help file in new ways.

Here is an example taken from the foCoach sample application. The TC-WIZ app in Figure 1 shows a Candy Store inventory ordering system screen before activating the help system. As with most systems, there are areas on the screen that may be somewhat unclear, especially to a novice user. For example, very few people have an immediate grasp of what the terms under the Units combo box (Each, Case, Box, Gross, Unit) really stand for.

Figure 1 - The TC-WIZ Ordering Application

As has become customary, the TC-WIZ app will explain to users what each of these terms mean, through it’s help system. But TC-WIZ (with a little help from the WinHelp training card feature and foCoach) is going to add something new. The Help system can actually be used to update the information of the main application screen, depending upon what the user is looking at in Help!

Here is what happens when the user displays the "Each" help window and chooses Use (see Figure 2). The Use button is actually an authorable button on the help screen - a button that the help author can put code behind. Use calls the WinHelp TCard macro. This macro sends a message back to the TC-WIZ program via foCoach. This message includes a unique identifier that TC-WIZ uses to determine the source of the message. The TC-WIZ application responds to the messages that it receives by updating the information in the item-specific bottom frame. Then, after prompting the user to confirm any changes, the main list and all relevant totals are also updated.

Figure 2 - The TC-WIZ Ordering Application Help Window

July 2006: foCoach is a depreciated control. Please contact us below for information on Help and Training assistant software

You can download a 30-day evaluation copy of foCoach (1.3MB).

You can download VB4 version updates to the TC-WIZ, VB Sample application.
Last updated 4-10-96 (30k).

You can download VB5 version updates to the TC-WIZ, VB Sample application.
Last updated 7-22-97 (39k).