Help page disables Moz composer window?

I'm a new user to Mozilla on OS X.  I'm using the Compose tool (which is 
pretty impressive). 

I've noticed that when I bring up a help page, it seems to be a modal window. 
That is, the window is forced to be on top and I can't do anything in the 
Compose window anymore.

For example, I'm looking at the Help page for publishing my document to a web 
server, but I can't click on the Publish button in the Compose window.

Is this a fluke on my system, or is this a "works as designed/coded" thing?

Thanks in advance
Ben in DC
OS X 10.2.4 on a dual CPU G4
Mozilla 1.3