Help opens in separate tab

LegacyUser

Stephen Lawrence said: When you click on Help it should always open in a new browser tab so that you can see the Help information and switch back easily to see where you were in your tree/history or whatever you were looking at. You nearly always want to be able to see the Help instructions and carry out those instructions in the other tab.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

All the menu selections will open over the existing tab/window or by right-clicking, open in a new tab/window.

As far as instructions go, FamilySearch is short in that department. But you may want to check out The Family History Guide, an independent (and FamilySearch approved) training resource -- http://thefhguide.com/. I am not associated with the owners or publishers of the FHG, but have referenced it and recommend it for someone who wants to use the exercises before they start doing something on the production site.

It not only provides instructions for FamilySearch, but also for using several other popular family history sites, such as Ancestry.

In addition, there is a "beta" sit for FamilySearch -- the data from production is brought over a couple of times a year, so if you need to try something, that's an excellent place to play around without worrying about damaging the data on FamilySearch. https://beta.familysearch.org/ is the site and it uses the same credentials you use with the production site.

LegacyUser

gasmodels said: I am in absolute agreement with the suggestion on this issue - have complained about this for over 5 years both on this site and personally at Roots Tech. I always use right click and open in a new tab because the current action is so wrong. It seems like this should be a relatively easy fix but the developers do not seem to care about the usefulness of the site they appear to be more interested in adding "bells and whistles" rather than something that is really functional for a user.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Stephen,

Although FS developers have blocked normal browser functions in many places on the site, this spot has not had browser functions disabled. So until FS improves this function, you do have the ability to use standard browser controls to open the menu item in a new tab or a new window. gasmodels has pointed out that he will do a right-click to get a new tab (he is obviously using a Windows PC or equivalent. I have a Mac and I can get a new tab with a command-click, or better yet, a new window by option-command-clicking on the desired help menu item. That is using Safari. When using Firefox it is slightly different

Check out what your browser uses to open in a new window or tab.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Tom, just a thought here. In your greeting for new participants, you might want to avoid using the term "community support forum". This is the FamilySearch Feedback forum on GetSatisfaction.com

The FamilySearch Community forums are the ones that you get to through the help menu. It is real easy to confuse people who are not aware that FamilySearch has set up multiple forums in totally different places.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Community-powered feedback forum? I'll change the greeting accordingly.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, I'd just avoid using the term "Community" whenever referring to this forum. I either refer to it as the FamilySearch Feedback forum or the FamilySearch Forum at GetSatisfaction.com.

On the website, anyplace that the term "Community" shows up with respect to forums (such as in the Help menu), it is almost always referring to the FamilySearch Community forums and NOT the Feedback forum.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: I am inclined to agree as well. However, in order to do that, they would have to override the normal browser controls to make it work. FS does that way too much as it is. I have become so accustom to using my browser controls and opening additional windows that when FS disables that ability so that they can customize things to a unique behavior of what THEY think it should be, it gets me irritated.

As a result, I find that I am continuously trying to find workarounds to hard-coded and frequently inefficient behaviors embedded on the site.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I would do that, except I like the idea of using the heading in Get Sat. Now, if FamilySearch had control over that heading "Feedback support for FamilySearch", then I would change it to "Feedback forum".

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Ahhh! Gotcha. Real good point.

So once again we are forced to use ambiguous terminology simply because of the way FS (or in this case possibly GetSatisfaction--I don't know who has control over that wording) has chosen their wording on things.