Feature Candidate: Add a Help or Hints feature, to help users in context.

[mkelleyharris]

Add a Hints or Help feature, to help users in context. Could be a small "?" on a page. Or "Help" or "Hints" button on SFW status bar. (Like "Logout" and Search. It could have three levels of info. Current context. Bigger state, and overall SFW info. Example user story: The user has unsubmitted changes. (yellow borders) because they weren't logged in when they made changes. If they clicked on the Hints or "?", they could be informed of their unsubmitted state, and give guidance on how to correct it.

[WardCunningham]

The web page footer (status bar) is a good place for information about the origin server and status specific to the client-side javascript loaded from the origin. Currently this consists of:

• login
• search
• neighborhood

One thing we should consider, how should added features talk to the user? Currently we just pop up new pages. For search these are ghost-pages that have no permanent (server-side) data behind them. This leads to an odd failure (blank search results) when someone refreshes their display.

For example, a help or status response could appear as another ghost-page where there are lots of formatting options and the ability to interact with other pages through drag and drop. Would this be a good way to go? Can the idea be developed further? Or is this piling too much functionality on "pages" when more conventional pop-up things should be used?

(My original wiki was sometimes criticized for not having a fixed top level menu. SFW is currently pretty light in the same way.)