Getting Help (2 minutes).
Introduction
Emuso comes with a built in help system of videos and user guides. The videos are mainly fetched from the Internet, when first viewed, and when a newer version of a viewed video is found.
When help is activated, the buttons, icons and so on will present help about themselves, rather than carrying out their normal function. However, it is possible to suspend help, without turning off the help system. This is useful when reading a user guide, and want to try something out. Suspended help can then be resumed. User guides are available via “Help > Toolkit User Guides…“. This menu item is disabled unless the Toolkit is active. A user guide, such as “Rhythm-X user guide”, provides detailed information on using a specific tool, and may link to videos at the top of the guide.
What you will learn
You will learn about the various screen scenarios involving help (what goes where on the screen), how to turn help on and off, and how to resize the various help panes. You will learn that clicking a button (etc.) results in help video when the help system is active, unless it has been suspended. You will also learn how to suspend and resume the help system when reading user guides.
Possible scenarios for screen usage, and help
Lesson, blog content – full-screen
User guides are unavailable. When help is activated, help videos are presented full-screen. Help is available for the Toolkit, Play Selected Style and Play button, the icons at the top of emuso, and the menu items.
Lesson, blog content – split-screen – not reading a user guide
When help is activated, help videos are presented full-width in the instrument side of the split-screen, at the bottom.
Lesson, blog content – split-screen – reading a user guide
User guides are only accessible via the “Help > Toolkit User Guides…” menu item when the toolkit is active. The user guide is presented in the instrument side of the split screen, at the bottom. That area splits, with the user guide at the left and any video linked from the user guide appears at the right, when the link is clicked. Otherwise the right hand portion is left empty.
Instrument full-screen – toolkit inactive
User guides are unavailable. Help videos appear full-width at the bottom
Instrument full-screen – toolkit active
User guides are available. The user guide and any video linked from the guide appear full-width at the bottom. That area splits, with the user guide at the left and any video at the right, when the link is clicked. Otherwise the right hand portion is left empty.
Activating, closing, suspending and resuming the help system
Help can be activated in three ways:
- Clicking on the Assistant button, the “?”, when help is off (the button has a dark grey background when off)
- Choosing a user guide from the Help menu activates the help system.
- Selecting a video from the Help menu
When the help system is active the Assitant button background appearance changes to green unless suspended (described below), when it changes to red.
When reading a user guide, initially all buttons (etc.) do not perform their usual function, and will result in a help video. But help can be suspended and resumed:
You can use the Help menu and select “Assistant suspend” to suspend help, and again to resume help. Or you can use keyboard shortcuts:
- Type “H” to suspend, when you are reading a user guide. Buttons etc become available for normal use
- Type “h” to resume. Buttons etc become unavailable for normal use
A video on the help system itself is available from the Help menu at the top of emuso.
Trying out the help system
The help panes that you see depend on whether the quick start has already been been placed in split-pane. Turning help off sets the various panes back to where they were previously. For now, we will use split-screen, so you can still see this quick start guide.
- Enter split-screen.
- Click the Assistant button. Notice it changes to a green colour, meaning it is active.
- Click again to turn off help. Its colour changes to dark grey.
- The menu Help > “How Assistant works (Video)” will bring up a help video, with the help system turned on.
- Use the menu to bring up the video.
- You can resize the various panes by left-dragging the various horizontal and vertical borders. If needed, make the quick start as narrow as possible, and drag the horizontal borders upwards.
- Please wach the video.
- Click the Assistant button to turn off help. Its panes are dismissed.
Now lets’s see what happens without split-screen …
- Select menu Help > “How Assistant works (Video)” . The help video appears full-screen, with the help system turned on.
- Click the Assistant button to turn off help.
When using a user-guide, if you select “Assistant suspend” from the Help menu, help is suspended, so you can click on buttons etc, and have them do their job. Click “Assistant suspend” again and help resumes so buttons etc won’t do their usual job. When done, turn off help by clicking the Assistant button to dismiss the user guide.
What you’ve learned
The help system provides content (video or user guide (with linked videos)) in response to clicking buttons, icons, and menu items, describing their function. When help is turned off, these all work as normal. When help is turned in by clicking the Assistant dropdown and selecting “on”, the buttons, icons etc. no longer function as normal, and instead result in help content appearing. Unless a user guide is open, a clicked button (etc.) will result in a help video, which may be full-screen, or occupying all of the bottom portion of a split screen (underneath the instrument (and Rhythm-X, if active)). When a user guide is open, then both the user guide and any video linked from it share that same bottom portion of the split screen, with the video on the right. Like this, if a button (etc) is clicked, its help video appears in that shared area. Unless full-screen the help content can be resized by dragging the horizontal border above it, or the vertical border for adjusting the split-screen, and by dragging the vertical border between the user guide and the video when they share the same portion at the bottom of the screen. When help is active, you can suspend help (click the Assistant dropdown and select “supend”) while reading a user guide so you can experiment while the user guide stays open. Help can be resumed by clicking the Assistant dropdown and selecting “resume”, or you can select “off” and the guide and any video are dismissed and help turned off.
Next
You’ll learn how to discover what chord types can be found in a scale, or chord types found in other chord types, visually, using the clock-instrument and a tool called Rel-X (relationship explorer). Learning about note choice fundamentally starts with an understanding of the relationships between chords and scales, such as what chord types can be built starting at different scale notes.
