Help Assistant

This small cartoon weed is shown over the top of any other pages. Its function is to provide help on a few common actions. The assistant does not provide any information that is not available elsewhere, either from the help button (?) on the Toolbar, the forms themselves and from the Help Menu .

If the assistant is enabled you may dismiss it from the 'Nothing - go away' speech bubble, from 'Hide assistant' on the options menu or using the assistant button on the Toolbar . You may prevent the assistant from appearing again next time you use the program by then clicking 'Save options' on the options menu. You may always bring it back using the wasp icon on the Toolbar or 'Show assistant' on the options menu.

This form except for the weed itself and the speech bubbles are transparent. Any control on the form beneath that is visible will operate normally. You may move the assistant by left click on a non transparent area, holding it down and dragging with the mouse. The speech bubbles are active areas when so indicated by the pointing finger mouse icon.

The Weed has the following controls:

• To go elsewhere
  Go to a previously opened main form, either the Database Selection Form, the Identification Form, the Thumbnail Browser or the Species Plate. Click on the picture in the box that comes up. These may also be accessed from the Toolbar or from the View Menu. If the forms are already open but hidden you may also select them from a list in the Windows menu. Note: You cannot open an Identification Form or Thumbnail Browser unless you have previously selected a database. You cannot open a species plate unless one has been opened previously in the same database.


• On this form
  Get help to use the form currently shown.This is the same as using the help icon (with ?) on the Toolbar.


• Something else
  Brings up this help. Same as using the help topics on the help menu.


• Nothing - go away
  Dismiss the assistant.

Note to Windows Vista Users with pre-Vista versions of Plants UK. For using the "Something else" option see Help Menu