[rt-users] Context Sensitive Help

[Ben Robson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Todd Chapman [mailto:todd at chaka.net]
> Sent: Monday, 6 February 2006 4:45 PM
> To: Ben Robson
> Cc: rt-users at lists.bestpractical.com
> Subject: Re: [rt-users] Context Sensitive Help
> 
> On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 03:02:12PM +1100, Ben Robson wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> >
> >
> > I have been looking in to the concept of implementing a context
> > sensitive help system in to RT.
> >
> >
> >
> > The best way I can see to achieve this, so far, is to modify the
"Tabs"
> > such that a new entry exists titled "Help" with its link pointing to
> > something like "~/local/html/help/$Title"  (yes this syntax is
wrong,
> > but you get the idea).
> >
> >
> >
> > This method means that the help page used changes with the title of
the
> > page displayed, thus meaning that each different page view (title)
can
> > have it's own help entry.  If you wanted to use a wiki instead you
could
> > even have the link point to a wiki entry with the wiki entry page
being
> > titled the same as the page entry in RT.
> >
> >
> >
> > The biggest issue I am working through right now is that $Title can
> > contain spaces, which of course a file system can struggle with.  So
I
> > was wondering, within the context of "Tabs" what is the best way to
> > strip the spaces from $Title, possible in to a new variable label?
> 
> What kind of help are you adding? I'm planning on some sort
> of per field pop-up help that explains what is expected in each
> field.
> 
> -Todd

My current plan was to implement a user help system.  The help provided
would be contextualised by the "Help" link being tied to the $Title
value, as available in the Tabs component.

My first cut was going to have the link content be static HTML files
(likely located in ~/local/html/help/$Title.html.  But in time I might
link it to a wiki of some type, where by the wiki page label will be the
$Title value in the Tabs.

The first significant issue I face is stripping the spaces from the
$Title value and getting that value in to a new variable label (e.g.
$HelpTitle), but doing this from within the Tabs file.

If I can't use the $Title value, I was going to se if I could create
some sort of generic Help system, and look up the referrer value to
determine where the link came from and hence what help content should be
displayed.

In time I too was going to look in to per-field style help, but
initially I just want a master help document framework linked to the
main menu bar (Tabs).

BenR