wish help would launch in a separate process or something.
if it’s launched from Max, it does some funny things, it’s hard to
keep on top.  couldn’t even get it to come up on top of any of my open
max windows.  tried switching applications, minimizing/maximizing.
i remember it being annoying, but never as bad as today.

I’ve found it’s usually an issue with the Material Editor.  Try closing ME and opening the Help, it should stay on top.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

right on, i’ll try that. i know i DID have the material editor open.  thanx!

This has been an issue for a couple of versions now.  The same problem existed in version 9 and 2008.  It’s very annoying, especially when you only have one monitor as we do in our classrooms.  I don’t understand why it has not yet been fixed.

Closing the material editor resolves the issue for me as well, but think of how frustrating this is when you’re trying to learn about new materials!  At first, I thought maybe it was just me (a video driver problem or something), but my home computer and all classroom computers are affected in the same manner.

I also agree that the Help program should be independent of Max.

I have a request as well:
It would be nice to have a Search Highlight toggle button.  After performing a search, if I want to turn the search highlight off, I have to first click the Options menu button, then select Search Highlight Off.  Then I have to click the Options menu button again and click Refresh (or Right-Click then Refresh).  This requires 4 mouse clicks.  If there were a toggle, this could be achieved with just one click.

if you open help through my computer it is independent
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2009\help

sorry guys, I’m rendering and have the time to vent/type.

don’t expect a toggle anytime soon (read ever...the help viewer is just MS Help Services, which is ancient anyway).  you know what, let’s do away with CHM altogether....PDF man, way better.  seems like I’ve seen viewers that are better than default MS CHM viewer, but that’s just what i need, another single use app.  or another shortcut to run the help from explorer

i would like to see a unified UI.  in the sense that dialogs for everything means they all work differently.  the new ones based off the scene explorer take forever to load.  the old ones have their issues:  not re-sizable horizontally.  keyboard usability isn’t 100% in areas (recent example: keyboard entry, you can put in number, tab between fields and the ‘Enter’ button, but enter or space won’t ‘commit’....you have to switch to the mouse to finish keyboard entry)

I think programs like After Effect, new Photoshop, Visual Studio, Realflow and many others now have it right, where panels are modular and can be docked, split, floating, re-sized however.  hopefully something like that’s coming because it’s easy with newer .NET

anyway, and I’ve said it before, there needs to be more re-work done on older parts of Max, instead of plugging in a new feature and calling it a new version.  I hate programming UI too, but it has to be done.  maybe hire some interns to do that stuff

An oldie but goodie… allows “Always On Top” etc. for any window.
http://www.abstractpath.com/powermenu/