A focused set of help topics that is related to the current context can be shown to users on demand using context-sensitive help. This form of user assistance is delivered to users when a platform-specific trigger is activated (e.g. F1 key on Windows, Ctrl+F1 on GTK, Help key on Carbon). Until Eclipse 3.1, context-sensitive help was presented in infopop windows. Since 3.1, a new Help view is the preferred way to deliver context-sensitive information to the user.
Context-sensitive help can be associated with widgets statically using context IDs, or dynamically using context providers. The new help view also adds dynamic help capability by searching help for topics relevant for the current context.