# Help system

The online help system lets you browse, search, and print system documentation. The documentation is organized into sets of information that are analogous to books. The help system also supplies a text search capabilities for finding the information you need by keyword and context-sensitive help for finding information to describe the particular function you are working with.

You can interact with help system in the workbench using Help view, or in external help browser window.

## The help browser

When you first open the help browser by selecting Help > Help Contents in the Workbench, the first view shown in the help window is called Contents. Contents displays various groupings of documentation for the product. Click on one of the links to expand the navigation tree for that set of documentation. Browse the tree and click on topics to display them.

## Search

If you want to find a particular piece of information in the online help, use Search. The help system will search the entire information set, or only a part of it, to find topics that meet the criteria you specify.

## The Help view

You can open a Help view by The Help view by selecting Help > Dynamic Help or by selecting Help > Search in the Workbench., A help view will open turning to the Related Topics or to the Search page. You can use links at the bottom of the help view to turn to other pages. Browse topics and click on links to display them.

## Context-sensitive help

If you are working through a task and encounter part of the interface that you do not understand, use context-sensitive help.. Bring focus to the interface widget in question by clicking on it or using the Tab key, and then press `F1` (`Ctrl+F1` on GTK+, and `Help` key on Carbon). A Help view will display description of the widget in focus, and list related topics. Leave the Help view open to see information on other interface elements when you focus on them.

When working in a dialog, like wizards, or preferences, and request context-sensitive help, a help view will be shown in a small window adjacent to the dialog.

An alternative way of presenting context-sensitive information are infopops. You can use help preference page to choose to use infopops instead of Help view for displaying context-sensitive help. If configured, a context help key, such as `F1`, will open an infopop that will provide you with information about the interface and, if appropriate, links to more information.

Note: On the some installation of KDE, Ctrl+F1 is the key binding for "Switch to Desktop 1". To make context-sensitive help work with GTK+ on KDE, then that binding must be removed. Try using the "KDE Default for 4 Modifier Keys" key binding scheme.

Help View

Accessing and navigating online help
Searching online help
Accessing context-sensitive help