A Cooperative Help Assistance (CHA) system and method provide real-time user
assistance
for one or more windows-based Graphic User Interface (GUI) applications or a single
application's different subsections such as web pages, running concurrently in
any operating system. The CHA System enables the development of an informative
assistance object independently from the original source code or development environment
of the target Host Application. The assistance object can be selected by any number
of user interfaces from sophisticated inference driven interactive interface search
tools or categorized lists. By intercepting and monitoring user actions on a Host
Application, the CHA system performs intelligent assistance in the context of the
target host application program. Utilizing a Host Application Model, the CHA System
and method dynamically assemble many elements in real-time or just-in-time to produce
assistance sequences or elements very efficiently without having to code every
interface path permutation. Paths can be dynamically generated from the Host Application
Model, which enables a real-time module to offer intelligent, contextual assistance
as well as real-time construction of automated, accelerated CHA Sequences or Procedures
that require little or no user interaction. All assistance and information are
processed and expressed by an extensive multitasking, multimedia subsystem for
two dimensional (2D) and real-time three-dimensional (3D) application interfaces,
which greatly enhances and extends the effectiveness of any explanation or material
expression. The production of Assistant Sequences is facilitated by the Host Application
Model and 2D and 3D GUI "drag and drop" interface tools.