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.

ToDo

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)

• --Make a multi-page help system
• --make two JSP pages (NO HEADERS--so links work)

JSP_Pages#About_Header_Files

• --make the main page into the help tab (as explained above)

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

To link to the help page and open it in a different window, you can always use the standard HTML idiom:

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

To Go to the Help Tab

• --get the ID of the Web Tab, or inspect the tab element to get iFrame ID
• --Find the Help tab and use {element}.click to click the tab!

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

To Load a Specific Page Into the Help Tab

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function go(loc){
   var helpTab = document.getElementById('...HELP TAB ID...')
   helpTab.src = loc; // Where the loc is any URL on the web
   helpTab.click;
}
</script>

--__TBD: Show relative URL to get to a JSP page__

• --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)