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WSKCONDOR · Jan 4, 2003, 07:40 PM

OK,
I have a brand new 1Ghz TiBook, with 1GB of Ram, and a 60GB hard drive which is mostly empty. All I have done is update to 10.2.3 (but it was doing this even before that�)
WHY DOESN�T THE HELP VIEWER WORK? I mean, come ON! It takes MINUTES to open. It takes MINUTES to access one link or even just go back a link. It just sits there with the spinning beach ball. If you go and have coffee, it will often eventually open some page, but normally human patience is not that great, and a forced quit is in order.
I saw this with my iBook600, and I guess I thought maybe:
1) it was my computer being a little slow �or-
2) somehow Apple wants you to be connected to the internet via a high speed connection for the help viewer to work (but keep in mind, I am not selecting links that are WEBSITE links, just the imbedded help).
I thought this last was a reason Sherlock was so slow to open as well, I guess it has to download the FORMAT of the page EVERY time.

IS anyone else seeing horrible and slow HELP viewer behaviour? REMEMBER, I am talking about the help pages and information that COME with the somputer and should not require internet access! I know it is not great anyway, and I don�t use it TOO often, but it should be better than that. I know most of you power users probably don�t access it at all, but try it out and lend your powers of analysis. Of course, I am back in Japan after the holidays, so making a call to Apple is difficult. I would just like to know if anyone else is seeing this�

Camelot · Jan 4, 2003, 08:19 PM

The short answer is that:

Help Viewer is a POS

It's badly implemented and poorly supported.

The ONLY saving grace is that it's much like Sherlock was in the early days, which means that it might actually approach being useful somewhere around 2006.

Just don't hold your breath. :-/

fulmer · Jan 4, 2003, 09:00 PM

Help sucks big-time. And needing 'net access for a lot of stuff is ridiculous.

sandsl · Jan 4, 2003, 09:08 PM

I am talking about the help pages and information that COME with the somputer and should not require internet access

Apple designed the Help system in Mac OS X so it always uses the most up to date help files.

Therefore if you have an active internet connection, Help will always grab the latest version of the help pages from apple.com. If however you don't have an active internet connection, help uses the content that shipped with Mac OS and the application you use.

This is good in one way because you always have the latest support files. On the other hand people with slower net connections have to wait ages for the new content to be downloaded.

I would guess Apples servers get a lot of hits: (every time someone running Mac OSX and has an active internet connection and opens help viewer) so maybe the reason help so slow is the fact that the Apple servers are too overloaded. Just a thought.

Finally, the Help system has been poorly coded and rushed...it needs a lot more work before Apple can say they have a *good* help system.

idjeff · Jan 4, 2003, 09:19 PM

Try indexing your hardrive. It speeds things up quite a bit for Help. If you don't know how to do index your hardrive, "Get Info" on you hardrive and it gives you the option to index.

WSKCONDOR · Jan 11, 2003, 08:51 AM

Good gouge.
The biggest thing I found was in discussions on Apple's site, and the need to "Repair Permissions". This worked. With 10.2 startup CD., the installer starts automatically, but you can ignore it and run DISK UTILITY from the pull down menu. Then select the hard drive with the OS on it, and "REPAIR DISK PERMISSIONS". Now Help at least starts normally, on or off line. Still it's slow, especially on line with a dial-up connection when it is accessing, but it is worlds better.