[How-To] Create Admin Help Topics For Your Product

[Marco van Herwaarden]

While in debug mode there is [Download / Upload Admin Help] link available to export your help. No need for manually doing this.

When someone want to install your helpfile, they will either have to be running debug mode to get to the same page, or just directly link to http://www.myboard.com/admincp/help.php?do=files

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by JumpD

1. You can leave it blank and it will just be a general topic available when the help icon in the title bar is clicked. A general help will display on the overall page that lists all helps for that area of the admin page.

This is not really true. It will just mean that it will be loaded regardless of the $_POST['do'] value.

Setting this is mostly usefull if your scrit have more then 1 'action' that display the same variable, and want to show a different help text depending on the action

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by MarcoH64

While in debug mode there is [Download / Upload Admin Help] link available to export your help. No need for manually doing this.

When someone want to install your helpfile, they will either have to be running debug mode to get to the same page, or just directly link to http://www.myboard.com/admincp/help.php?do=files

You're missing the whole point of having it install/uninstall automatically with the product. That is what this How-To is for.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Once you started about phpMyAdmin, i stopped reading, since exporting them and adding a second file is much less work for me then to even open phpMyAdmin.

PS I already filed a bugreport for the missing Admin Help in the product files months ago, and it is flagged for future version: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/bugs3...view&bugid=928

[Code Monkey]

Thanks for the link.

However, in the meantime, if you want to add admin help to your product in a way that requires no effort on the part of the end user, this is how you can do it for now. Works real good and requires no effort on the part of the end user. And we know how much effort they are willing to give.

This is for product developers.

Originally Posted by MarcoH64

Once you started about phpMyAdmin, i stopped reading, since exporting them and adding a second file is much less work for me then to even open phpMyAdmin.

LOL, pull up a coach and take a break then.

Obviously, it's nowhere near as much work as creating the whole product.

It's a one time effort.

[Andreas]

I would suggest a slightly different approach:

Create a Plugin for Hook admin_global (not attached to the product, only for the dev machine!)

PHP Code:

function adminhelp_xml_handler($xml)
{
    global $product_details, $vbulletin;
    if ($product_details)
    {
        // query topics
        $helptopics = array();
        $topics = $vbulletin->db->query_read("
            SELECT * FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "adminhelp
            WHERE volatile = 1
                AND (product = '" . $vbulletin->db->escape_string($product_details['productid']) . "')
            ORDER BY action, displayorder
        ");
        while ($topic = $vbulletin->db->fetch_array($topics))
        {
            $helptopics["$topic[script]"][] = $topic;
        }
        unset($topic);
        $vbulletin->db->free_result($topics);

        require_once(DIR . '/includes/class_xml.php');
        $adminhelp_xml = new XMLexporter();

        $adminhelp_xml->add_group('helptopics', array('product' => $product_details['productid']));

        ksort($helptopics);
        foreach($helptopics AS $script => $scripttopics)
        {
            $adminhelp_xml->add_group('helpscript', array('name' => $script));
            foreach($scripttopics AS $topic)
            {
                $attr = array('disp' => $topic['displayorder']);
                if ($topic['action'])
                {
                    $attr['act'] = $topic['action'];
                }
                if ($topic['optionname'])
                {
                    $attr['opt'] = $topic['optionname'];
                }
                $adminhelp_xml->add_tag('helptopic', '', $attr);
            }
            $adminhelp_xml->close_group();
        }
        $adminhelp_xml->close_group();

        $xmloutput = str_replace("\n</product>", "\n\t" . substr(str_replace("\n", "\n\t", $adminhelp_xml->output()), 0, -1) . "</product>", $xml);
        header('Content-Length: ' . strlen($xmloutput));
        return $xmloutput;
    }
    else
    {
        return $xml;
    }
}


if ($_REQUEST['do'] == 'productexport')
{
    ob_start('adminhelp_xml_handler');
} 


When creating your product, include the following as part of your install code

PHP Code:

preg_match('/(\t<helptopics.*<\/helptopics>)/s', $xml, $matches);
require_once(DIR . '/includes/adminfunctions_help.php');
$adminhelp = $matches[0];
xml_import_help_topics($adminhelp); 


Done. No phpMyAdmin, manual importing or whatever

[Code Monkey]

Yep that works great. However, you can get the xml to add into your product xml by just exporting the product help files in the admin help manager. No need for the plugin. The less ugly code I can get from the screwed up plugin exporter with it's broken line endings the better.

The pregmatch code for the install is awsome though. Hopefully that's in the next vb update.

Thanks.

[Andreas]

Sure, you can manually copy the adminhelp XML into the product XML, but I prefer it to be automatic - less work
What do you mean with "broken line endings"?

[Code Monkey]

When I export a product (linux server) it has trailing spaces instead of line endings so it's all one line basically. I have to go through and fix it. It doesn't effect the parts with code. Just the areas where the tags are.

Someone who is wanting to add help to an existing product would only need to export it from the help manager, remove the bit about vbulletin version, and add it to the product xml.

Someone working on a new product, or while doing major updates would be better off using your plugin and exporting the whole thing.

EDIT: I should clarify. The data within tags has it's line endings and looks normal. It's after all the closing tags that there is a problem.