1. What is TaskGuide Viewer?
   
   TaskGuide Viewer is an XML-based wizard for creating wizards. This wizard-creation tool makes computer tasks easier by breaking complicated tasks into sequential, simple steps that can be performed using a graphical, user-friendly interface.
   
   TaskGuide Viewer is a step above other wizard systems, which require you build the graphical user interface and manage data using traditional programming languages. Building & displaying wizards with TaskGuide Viewer is as easy as creating & viewing HTML files.
   
   The companion documentation, IBM's TaskGuide: An XML-Based System for Building Wizards, has all the information you need to develop wizards. Once you've coded the your wizard script, the TaskGuide Viewer displays your panels and follows the instructions in your script. Best of all, the TaskGuide Viewer provides usability-tested screen layout and navigation options, allowing you to focus on task content rather than design elements. The main headaches of building wizards--screen layout, navigation, and data management--are eliminated.
   
   
2. What are wizards built using TaskGuide Viewer composed of?
   
   A wizard built using TaskGuide Viewer is composed of an XML script, TaskGuide Viewer, supporting artwork, and any TaskGuide extensions.
   
   
3. How can TaskGuide Viewer help my customers and my product?
   
   Wizards are useful for automating tasks that are difficult but that are done infrequently. Installation, configuration, and diagnosis are good examples.
   
   
4. Is TaskGuide Viewer a tutorial?
   
   No. Wizards don't teach you how to do a task. If it's important to your users that they learn how to do the task without help, a wizard probably isn't appropriate. That being said, however, you could use TaskGuide Viewer to provide some basic tutorial-like functions if you want.
   
   
5. What is involved in using the TaskGuide Viewer to develop a wizard for my product?
   
   The first step is a thorough task analysis to make sure that the task you're automating is actually valuable to your users. Once you've determined what your wizard should do, you build an initial wizard script. Ask your users what they think about the script, then revise the script accordingly. From this point, you build extensions to connect the TaskGuide Viewer with your product. You should automate as much as possible.
   
   
6. How long does creating a wizard take?
   
   The time it takes to create a wizard varies widely, depending on how involved your TaskGuide extensions are. The script itself takes roughly one week for every ten panels. In various TaskGuide projects, the effort of writing the extensions has been as much as 95% of the work and as little as 5%.
   
   
7. Where can I report problems or suggestions?
   
   You can post problems/questions in the CommunityXchange (forum/discussion) section of alphaWorks by clicking on the "Discussion" button below. You can also send feedback directly to the TaskGuide Development Team in Raleigh. Contact Doug Tidwell in Raleigh (dtidwell@us.ibm.com) about suggestions for new features.
   
   
8. Who has already deployed TaskGuide-based wizards in their products?
   
   TaskGuide-based wizards have been shipped in products by Team Connection, Secure Web Server, Personal Communications/3270, Communications Server, and more. In addition, the TaskGuide Viewer ships with the current release of OS/2, and the Java version will ship with the next release of AIX.

If you're using the Windows 95/NT or OS/2 viewers, then at the command prompt, type:

If you're using the Java viewer, then at the command prompt, type: