user editable context sensitive online help

5 messages

Dylan Jay-4 () user editable context sensitive online help

Reply Threaded

hi,

Not sure if this off topic or not but just had an inspiration for an
online help solution while responding to a tender.
If every plone site had a help folder that contained content with a
special field for matching urls. Say a regular expression. So then
content creators could provide their own help pages for any screen
like ".*login_form" would match any login form screen. Then have a
global viewlet that puts links to help content available for that
page. Put that viewlet in a consistent location.
If such a system existed we might be able to ship parts of the user
manual as online help linked to relevant pages. Idea might need
refinement to handle upgrades of that standard help however.

If others like the idea I'll put it as a plip? Are there other such
online help proposals out there?

Dylan.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:
SourcForge Community
SourceForge wants to tell your story.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
_______________________________________________
Plone-docs mailing list
[hidden email]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs

Raphael Ritz () Re: user editable context sensitive online help

Reply Threaded

Dylan Jay wrote:

> hi,
>
> Not sure if this off topic or not but just had an inspiration for an
> online help solution while responding to a tender.
> If every plone site had a help folder that contained content with a
> special field for matching urls. Say a regular expression. So then
> content creators could provide their own help pages for any screen
> like ".*login_form" would match any login form screen. Then have a
> global viewlet that puts links to help content available for that
> page. Put that viewlet in a consistent location.
> If such a system existed we might be able to ship parts of the user
> manual as online help linked to relevant pages. Idea might need
> refinement to handle upgrades of that standard help however.
>
> If others like the idea I'll put it as a plip? Are there other such
> online help proposals out there?

This idea is so good that others had it before ;-)

The first I'm aware of is
http://plone.org/products/plonehelpregistry
http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/38

This has been followed up and been refined by
http://plone.org/products/contextualhelp
https://svn.plone.org/svn/plone/plone.app.contextualhelp/
http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/119

but unfortunately things where never finalized. :-(

So it seems to me like there is something to build upon,
there should be more people around who might commit themselves
to this and if we are lucky all it needs is someone to
champion those efforts (push, coordinate, motivate, ...)

Does that sound like something you could be up to ;-)

Raphael

>
> Dylan.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:
> SourcForge Community
> SourceForge wants to tell your story.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:
SourcForge Community
SourceForge wants to tell your story.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
_______________________________________________
Plone-docs mailing list
[hidden email]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs

Mikko Ohtamaa () Re: user editable context sensitive online help

Reply Threaded

> Not sure if this off topic or not but just had an inspiration for an
> online help solution while responding to a tender.
> If every plone site had a help folder that contained content with a
> special field for matching urls. Say a regular expression. So then
> content creators could provide their own help pages for any screen
> like ".*login_form" would match any login form screen. Then have a
> global viewlet that puts links to help content available for that
> page. Put that viewlet in a consistent location.
> If such a system existed we might be able to ship parts of the user
> manual as online help linked to relevant pages. Idea might need
> refinement to handle upgrades of that standard help however.

We have been also tested online help solution where quick help for inputting complex medical fields was required

1) We added new AT field attribute called "help_link"

2) Help_link is a site path to Document object having the help text as body

3) If field has AT help_link attribute a help link (? in blue circle) is rendered next to the field label. This requires overriding AT base files and fields folder due to plone_skins limitations, making it unsuitable for generic use.

4) If the user clicks blue ? a jquery pop-up DIV is displayed next to the field label, showing the content of help_link Document, retrieved via AJAX. Jquery pop up is automatically closed when the user navigates forward.

5) The help-pop has also [edit this] link which allows to edit the on-line help in wiki style by users (by giving Modify portal content permission to all Members via workflow), so that the users can help each other in common problems

AT based approach is bad due to its ties into AT internals. CSS rules + Javascript based solution sounds more suitable. However, it could be still reasonable to define the help link in the field definition, so that code maintenance overhead doesn't raise too much because of decoupling of two related items.

-Mikko

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:
SourcForge Community
SourceForge wants to tell your story.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
_______________________________________________
Plone-docs mailing list
[hidden email]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs

Dylan Jay-4 () Re: user editable context sensitive online help

Reply Threaded

In reply to this post by Raphael Ritz

On 29/01/2009, at 8:37 PM, Raphael Ritz wrote:

> Dylan Jay wrote:
>> hi,
>>
>> Not sure if this off topic or not but just had an inspiration for an
>> online help solution while responding to a tender.
>> If every plone site had a help folder that contained content with a
>> special field for matching urls. Say a regular expression. So then
>> content creators could provide their own help pages for any screen
>> like ".*login_form" would match any login form screen. Then have a
>> global viewlet that puts links to help content available for that
>> page. Put that viewlet in a consistent location.
>> If such a system existed we might be able to ship parts of the user
>> manual as online help linked to relevant pages. Idea might need
>> refinement to handle upgrades of that standard help however.
>>
>> If others like the idea I'll put it as a plip? Are there other such
>> online help proposals out there?
>
> This idea is so good that others had it before ;-)
>
> The first I'm aware of is
> http://plone.org/products/plonehelpregistry
> http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/38
>
> This has been followed up and been refined by
> http://plone.org/products/contextualhelp
> https://svn.plone.org/svn/plone/plone.app.contextualhelp/
> http://plone.org/products/plone/roadmap/119
>

Fantastic. Seems crazy when I now think about it not to have an out of
the box context help for base plone. esp one that can be added to by
non technical users.

> but unfortunately things where never finalized. :-(
>
> So it seems to me like there is something to build upon,
> there should be more people around who might commit themselves
> to this and if we are lucky all it needs is someone to
> champion those efforts (push, coordinate, motivate, ...)
>
> Does that sound like something you could be up to ;-

Yep. I'm personally overcommitted on side projects at the moment but
if we win the tender we'd be aiming to build a generic system on the
best of what's out there.

>
>
> Raphael
>
>
>>
>> Dylan.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> This SF.net email is sponsored by:
>> SourcForge Community
>> SourceForge wants to tell your story.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:
> SourcForge Community
> SourceForge wants to tell your story.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
> _______________________________________________
> Plone-docs mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs

Andy McKay () Re: user editable context sensitive online help

Reply Threaded

In reply to this post by Dylan Jay-4

And I'll chip in a while back we did one for old worldy Plone at a
sprint:

http://plone.org/products/hoverhelp

All you have to do is make some templates. I'm toying with integrating
into Django and updating to jquery now. The arguments between the
differing systems came down to where you'd write the content and how
users would interact with it.
--
Andy McKay
ClearWind Consulting: www.clearwind.ca
Blog: www.agmweb.ca/blog/andy

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:
SourcForge Community
SourceForge wants to tell your story.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
_______________________________________________
Plone-docs mailing list
[hidden email]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs