Adobe Photoshop CS - Navigating the HTML-Based Help System - Task 9

 Task 9

Adobe Photoshop CS - How To Navigate To the HTML-Based Help System ?

Sometimes we all need a little help to get us through the lonely, confusing times. And with so many options in Photoshop, we can get lonely and confused more often than we would like. Photoshop comes with an extensive Help System written in HTML, the markup language commonly used to

create Web pages.

So, when in doubt, launch your browser and surf the Help pages until you find

your answer.

1. To access the HTML-based Help System select Help ➪ Photoshop Help. You will notice the Help System, as shown in Figure 9-1, is divided into two areas. In the left frame is the main navigation area and on the right is the content area. There are five text links at the top of the navigation area: Using Help, Contents, Index, Site Map and Search.

Figure 9-1: The initial display of the Help System

2. If you need help in navigating the content of the Help System, click Using Help to show a series of links in the content area that you can click for more information on using the various Help System features.

3. Select Contents for a series of links that enable you to access the contents of the Help System chapter by chapter.

note

• In order to view the Help System, you need to have Netscape Navigator 4.75

(or higher) or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 (or higher) installed with

JavaScript enabled.

4. Select Index to view the index of the entire Help System. You can scan the Help index much as you would scan the index of this book, looking for keywords.

5. Click Site Map in order to view all topics in the Help System and all entries in the Index.

6. To search the Help System insert the keywords into the input field and click Submit. The results from the search are listed below the search form, as shown in Figure 9-2. Click a link to open the page with the information you want in the content window on the right-hand side.

Figure 9-2: Search results listed below the Help search form

7. In order to navigate within the content window, use the Previous and Next text links at the top and bottom of the content area to return to the previous page or advance to the next page of the help content.

8. Users who are new to Photoshop might appreciate the Tutorials, Tips and Tricks, Color Management Setup and What’s New Information links on the Welcome Screen. By default, the Welcome Screen is displayed when you first start Photoshop (unless you haven’t checked the “Show this dialog at Startup” checkbox). You can also access this screen any time during your current session by selecting Help ➪Welcome Screen.

tip

• The JavaScript powered Search in the Help System is somewhat slow. In order

to speed things up, you might want to forget about the Search and click Index

or Site Map. When the page appears in the navigation window, click in the

window, and then use the browser’s Find command to search for text on the current

page. If the browser finds the text, it scrolls the Site Map to locate the text

you want. You can then click a link to display the topic.

cross-reference

• The HTML-based Help System is definitely a lifesaver when figuring out the

nuances of a large software application like Photoshop. To help other

people work on your images, it’s best to leave a note about key points. In

Task 17, you can learn how to leave a text and audio note.