Closing Help Window From Keyboard

[W]

It's very common in Excel that you go to hit F2 to edit a formula, and you
accidentally hit F1 which opens up that silly sidebar. You are then forced
to switch to mouse to close it. Is there a keystroke to close that help
window?

 

[Claus Busch]

Am Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:33:32 -0700 schrieb W:

It's very common in Excel that you go to hit F2 to edit a formula, and you
accidentally hit F1 which opens up that silly sidebar. You are then forced
to switch to mouse to close it. Is there a keystroke to close that help
window?

try: Alt + F4


Regards
Claus Busch

 

[Jim Cone]

Ctrl + F1 works for me.
--
Jim Cone
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.mediafire.com/PrimitiveSoftware
(Extras for Excel: Date picker, Clean Data, Classic Menu ...)




"W" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[W]

Am Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:33:32 -0700 schrieb W:


try: Alt + F4

That closes Excel. I only want to close the child window that the Help
facility lives in.

 

[W]

Ctrl + F1 works for me.
--
Jim Cone
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.mediafire.com/PrimitiveSoftware
(Extras for Excel: Date picker, Clean Data, Classic Menu ...)

Wonderful, thank you!

 

[Claus Busch]

Am Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:41:42 -0700 schrieb W:

That closes Excel. I only want to close the child window that the Help
facility lives in.

Sorry, I thought shortcuts are the same in every language version.
In my german language version Alt + F4 only closes the help window


Regards
Claus Busch

 

[Stan Brown]

It's very common in Excel that you go to hit F2 to edit a formula, and you
accidentally hit F1 which opens up that silly sidebar. You are then forced
to switch to mouse to close it. Is there a keystroke to close that help
window?

Alt-F4, of course. It's the standard Windows "close program" key
combination.

And yes, I checked it before posting. It closes the help window but
not Excel.

 

[Stan Brown]

That closes Excel. I only want to close the child window that the Help
facility lives in.

When someone offers you a solution, you might at least try it before
dismissing it out of hand. In this case, the solution you dismissed
out of hand was the correct one.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Stan

Alt + F4 closes Excel in my Windows7 with Excel 2003 or 2007



Gord

 

[GS]

Gord Dibben explained :

Stan

Alt + F4 closes Excel in my Windows7 with Excel 2003 or 2007

When Help appears in a docked pane (rather than its own window),
Ctrl+F1 closes the Help pane while Alt+F4 closes the host app because
its window has the focus.

When Help appears in its own window, Alt+F4 closes the Help window IF
it has the focus.

IOW, Alt+F4 closes whichever window has the focus.

--
Garry

Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
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microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion

 

[Stan Brown]

Stan

Alt + F4 closes Excel in my Windows7 with Excel 2003 or 2007

Yes, of course it does, when Excel is the currently active window.

But when you're in Excel, and you accidentally hit F1 as the OP
described, the help window becomes active. It's a separate program,
and Alt-F4 closes it and it alone, which is what the OP asked for.

Did you post upside down in honor of St. Patrick's Day?

 

[GS]

It happens that Stan Brown formulated :

Yes, of course it does, when Excel is the currently active window.

But when you're in Excel, and you accidentally hit F1 as the OP
described, the help window becomes active. It's a separate program,
and Alt-F4 closes it and it alone, which is what the OP asked for.

Did you post upside down in honor of St. Patrick's Day?

That's version/option dependant. In 2003 and later Help appears in its
own 'pane' inside the host app's window and so using Alt+F4 will close
the host app, while using Ctrl+F1 will only close the Help 'pane'!

--
Garry

Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
ClassicVB Users Regroup!
comp.lang.basic.visual.misc
microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion

 

[Gord Dibben]

Thanks for the update.

My help window is always docked so did not notice the distinction.

Apologies to Stan.


Gord

 

[Gord Dibben]

I have posted upside down for the past 12 years<g>

See GS's post and my reply to it.

Depends upon whether or not the help window is docked.


Gord

 

[Stan Brown]

That's version/option dependant. In 2003 and later Help appears in its
own 'pane' inside the host app's window

I have Excel 2010, and that emphatically does not happen for me.
Whether I press F1 or click the little question mark in a circle, I
get an independent window titled "Excel help".

Maybe there's some option setting that controls where Help appears?
But I've just now scanned the Excel 2010 options, and I don't see
anything appropriate.

 

[GS]

Stan Brown wrote :

I have Excel 2010, and that emphatically does not happen for me.
Whether I press F1 or click the little question mark in a circle, I
get an independent window titled "Excel help".

Maybe there's some option setting that controls where Help appears?
But I've just now scanned the Excel 2010 options, and I don't see
anything appropriate.

Stan,
Thanks for that info. I haven't installed 2010 yet and so can't speak
to the behavior. My comments, though, are 'general' in nature as they
refer to the behavior difference between a 'docked' window and a
'normal' window.

Host apps that allow optional 'docking' of Help windows usually have
keyboard shortcuts for doing so, as well as an optional keyboard
shortcut for closing it without having to use the mouse. This 'docked'
window is no longer an independant 'normal' window running
"in-process", but rather has become a "child" window in the host app
and thereby has taken on the respective attributes/behaviors of an MDI
child to the host (parent) app. In this case, Alt+F4 sends its messages
to the host app because it has the focus (when not 'working/editing' in
a child window).

In Excel 2003, Help displays by default in the 'docked' window known as
"Task Pane", which also displays many other things besides help. The
keyboard shortcut to 'toggle' display of the TaskPane happens to be
Ctrl+F1 regardless of what it is displaying. I'm not saying that this
works for all 'docked' windows, ..only where provision has been made
for UI interaction via the keyboard for dispaying/closing 'docked'
windows. I have other apps that allow docking/undocking as well as
hide/unhide windows that are docked. In Excel 2003 the Task Pane is
either Visible=True or Visible=False, meaning it's always loaded during
runtime.

I suspect, then, that unlike Excel 2003 the other versions display Help
in a normal window if there's no optional choice how to display it. In
this case, then, Help displays in a 'normal' in-process window and so
will behave as any other window with focus.

--
Garry

Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
ClassicVB Users Regroup!
comp.lang.basic.visual.misc
microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion

 

[Gord Dibben]

GS

What I see in 2003 is Alt + F4 does not close the help window even
when undocked.

It is movable when undocked but remains "attached" to the application
which closes when Alt + F4 is activated.

2007 help window opens in its own distinct window and Alt + F4 will
close it.

I guess 2010 is same as 2007.



Gord

 

[GS]

Gord Dibben was thinking very hard :

GS

What I see in 2003 is Alt + F4 does not close the help window even
when undocked.

It is movable when undocked but remains "attached" to the application
which closes when Alt + F4 is activated.

2007 help window opens in its own distinct window and Alt + F4 will
close it.

I guess 2010 is same as 2007

I get the same behavior. It doesn't matter if the TaskPane is 'docked'
or not because it will always be a 'child' of the MS Office host app.
IOW, it's not a 'normal' window. You can tell this by the missing
sizing buttons in the TitleBar. Note also that TaskPane is listed under
View>Toolbars, which further suggests it's a member of the Toolbars
collection and as such, do not qualify as independant windows (as would
a dialog, for example), and for all appearances behaves much the same
as any undocked toolbar.

This is not the same as the 'dockable' windows in the VBE, which do
have the sizing buttons. However, they do not have independant keyboard
shortcuts that hide them (display only is provided for some not all).

I have a VB6 app that implements display of 2 different 'panes' in much
the same fashion, but use the same keyboard key as the toggle. The
difference here is none because Ctrl+F1 is also the toggle for the
TaskPane regardless of whether a user hit F1 or not. So the action to
be taken is to toggle the display of the control that displays help,
which in this case 'appears' confusing due to the association to "F1".

Just to further clarify Stan's point.., help files usually open in
their stand-alone app window as an "in-process" extension of the host
app. Code mechanisms are in place to ensure that help is controlled by
the host app for its runtime life, meaning when the host app closes so
does any respective help files it opened during runtime. Usually, the
host app stores a ref to the help window's handle so it doesn't open
multiple instances of it when it happens to be covered by foreground
windows or minimized to the tray. The VB6 app I mentioned earlier uses
a stand-alone EXE (an ebook, actually) for its Userguide and so the
mechanism to make it behave like a normal in-process CHM/HLP had to be
included in it's handler routines. Otherwise, it can be used
stand-alone same as a CHM/HLP file can be used outside the host app. I
also use this method of displaying UserGuides in some of my
application-level Excel addins.

--
Garry

Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
ClassicVB Users Regroup!
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microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion

 

[Stan Brown]

I get the same behavior. It doesn't matter if the TaskPane is 'docked'
or not because it will always be a 'child' of the MS Office host app.
IOW, it's not a 'normal' window. You can tell this by the missing
sizing buttons in the TitleBar.

Excuse me? Missing sizing buttons? If you're referring to minimize,
restore, and close, at the right-hand end of the title bra, I have
them in the help window just as I do in the Excel window. "Microsoft
Excel" and "Excel Help" are two buttons on the taskbar. As I've
posted multiple times, Alt-F4 when the help window has focus closes
Help without closing Excel.

Again, this is Excel 2010.

Just for fun, I tried giving focus to Excel without closing the Help
window. When I then hit Alt-F4, Excel and the help window closed.

 

[GS]

Stan Brown brought next idea :

Excuse me? Missing sizing buttons? If you're referring to minimize,
restore, and close, at the right-hand end of the title bra, I have
them in the help window just as I do in the Excel window.

That's right! I was referring to the TaskPane in XL2003 which, when
undocked, is missing the sizing buttons. If you 'get' the context in
which Ctrl+F1 is used then you'll note that it has nothing to do with
the context in which Alt+F4 is used as they apply to different
conditions.

"Microsoft
Excel" and "Excel Help" are two buttons on the taskbar. As I've
posted multiple times, Alt-F4 when the help window has focus closes
Help without closing Excel.

Again, this is Excel 2010.

Just for fun, I tried giving focus to Excel without closing the Help
window. When I then hit Alt-F4, Excel and the help window closed.

And so this is the expected behavior as described in my reply to Gord.
What's confusing everyone, IMO, is the incorrect inference that Ctrl+F1
has something to do with displaying Help, when in fact all it does is
toggle display of the TaskPane in XL2003 (and I assume other MS Office
2003 apps that use it).

I guess I should have qualified that what you report is correct in that
Help displays in its own 'normal' window in non-XL2003 versions. I also
should have better clarified that no Excel versions make it optional
how/where help displays. (But I do have apps that do make it optional
and so commented accordingly) I assumed it would be concluded that the
determining factor would be 'if the host app provided an option'! My
bad for readers would pick up on this without me having to be more
explicit in this regard.

Summary:

In Excel2003:
F1 displays help in the TaskPane. (default behavior)
Ctrl+F1 toggles visibility of the TaskPane. (default shortcut)
Visiblity of the TaskPane is optional on the Options>View tab.
To close help requires closing the TaskPane.
Alt+F4 closes Excel. (standard Windows behavior)


In all other Excel versions:
F1 displays help in its own window;
This is an in-process extension to the host app.
Alt+F4 closes whichever window has the focus.
(This is standard Windows behavior)
Closing Excel by any means also closes any instance of help running.

--
Garry

Free usenet access at http://www.eternal-september.org
ClassicVB Users Regroup!
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