I'm trying to evaluate Advanced Help, and so far I am not having luck.

I enabled the "Advanced Help example" module and enabled all of the Advanced Help permissions for all my user roles. Now I'm looking for some way to try the example, such as a new item in the navigation menu, but I don't see anything, and I can't find instructions.

I suppose the next step in self-help will be to start reading code, but that can't be what the contributors intended -- I must be on the wrong track somewhere. Have I made a mistake, or am I just missing something?

On another topic: it's not entirely clear how to use the module. The text in the example appears to say that Advanced Help can only be invoked from another module, but then it goes on to describe how to invoke it from an anchor tag. Must it be invoked from a module, or not? If it does have to be invoked from a module, what has to go in the module -- the whole page, or just a little function that a page or template file can call? If the whole page must go in the module, how does one accomplish that in a case where the page is produced by a template file?

Comments

merlinofchaos’s picture

merlinofchaos commented

You can see the advanced help example by going to administer >> advanced help

That will show you the entirety advanced help available; that's the only place that advanced help, itself, puts links.

For modules that utilize advanced help, chances are they'll want to provide appropriate links to help topics themselves. They can do this by putting theme('advanced_help_topic', $modulename, $topicname) into their output at the right spot. This can be placed anywhere that a module can put output. theme_advanced_help_topic also has several options (display an icon, or text, for example).

Views 2 is utilizing advanced help fairly well, so installing that module and visiting Views' administration page can show you the kinds of things it does with the module.

1) Views performs a check to see if the advanced help module is present; if it is not, it does a drupal_set_message asking the user (if the user is an administrator) to install it (and a separate variable_get check to see if that message should be disabled).

2) Views puts a link to the 'getting started' topic at the very top of the main administrative page

3) Views puts a few contextual links in various places in its administration.

On another topic: it's not entirely clear how to use the module. The text in the example appears to say that Advanced Help can only be invoked from another module, but then it goes on to describe how to invoke it from an anchor tag.

Advanced help isn't so much invoked from a module as links to the topics are placed by the module, because only the module that provides the output can really know where the links to related topics should go.

orthoducks’s picture

orthoducks commented
Advanced help isn't so much invoked from a module as links to the topics are placed by the module, because only the module that provides the output can really know where the links to related topics should go.

Thank you, that's clear. The description in the module catalog was not so clear. I'll see if I can make it better after I'm familiar with the module.

I think I couldn't find the link to the example because it is in the Administer menu, but not in the "map" displayed by the Administer menu item. The map is otherwise a superset of the menu, with headings corresponding to the menu items, and entries corresponding to the subitems. I looked at the map, assuming the example would be there if it was anywhere, and it wasn't.

merlinofchaos’s picture

merlinofchaos commented

Yea, the same is true for the help.module help too. I'm not sure what to do about that.

Patches to improve the documentation are enthusiastically welcome!

merlinofchaos’s picture

merlinofchaos commented
Status: Active » Fixed

Marking fixed if all your questions were successfully answered.

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for two weeks with no activity.