HowTo:Create Application-Specific Help

The pages you are currently reading comprise the support wiki. The support wiki is intended primarily for application builders, admins, and installers. But end-users need information that is specific to the application they are using--and that is where application-specific help comes in.

Work In Progress: This page is under development. This page should be completed shortly.

About Application-Specific Help

In this article, we assume that you know how to add a button to a form, and that you know how to create an interface tab that displays a single HTML page of information. Here, we'll assume that you want to display different pages, depending on the user's current location--so you'll be wiring help buttons that appear on different forms so they display different pages in the help tab.

Learn more:

• Form Scripts#Add a Help Button to an Arbitrary Form
• Application Help Tab

Working with Application-Specific Help

x-Make a self-contained Help tab (Sample Help Page)

--TBD: How to add a reference to jQuery in an HTML page, if needed (Sherwin)

http://agileappslive.info/aadev/JSP_Pages#About_Header_Files

• --Make a multi-page help system
• --make two JSP pages (NO HEADERS--so links work)
• --make the main page into the help tab (as explained above)
• --get the ID of the Web Tab, or inspect the tab element to get iFrame ID

• for links TO the page (from a Help button on a form):

• --To display link-target in a new window, use the standard HTML idiom:

<a href="source-URL" target="_blank">...text...</a>

• --Find the Help tab, use {element}.click to click the tab!

<script>
function goToHelpTab() {
   document.getElementById("...HELP TAB ID...").click();
}
</script>

• --To go to the help tab and load a specific page:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function go(loc){
   document.getElementById('...HELP TAB ID...').src = loc;
}
</script>

THEN "click" the tab from the script

• --To display link-target in the Help tab:

function to search for the iFrame and change the src attribute:

onclick() in the anchor to invoke the function and pass target

--loc.href="pages/PAGE_NAME"

--works for pages hosted in the platform

--does not work for external pages (use the external site option, for that)

• --In http://agileappslive.info/aadev/Form_Scripts#Targeting_Options

--add a learn-more link that goes to "Making Help Pages"