Advanced help is a really cool module, and I guess it could be a major help to give new users to drupal a head start. Yet, I feel a bit bound by the fact that you need to put all the help inside a module, so that if you start delivering a drupal installation in no time the documentation will be outdated.

It would be nice to have the help popup redirect to a drupal installation serving help only (keeping the style so that users won't even notice). Developers could then continuously keep this up-to-date. Is something like this planned, or maybe already possible?

PS: this could apply to developer documentation as well. Imagine providing entrance points in your module to documentation and then extending it continuously on eg drupal.org

Comments

merlinofchaos’s picture

merlinofchaos commented

This is not something that is planned.

How can the help get outdated if you're not updating the code? If you update the code then why aren't you updating the help?

pvhee’s picture

pvhee commented

Indeed, given that you use it to document your module. I was more thinking of using it to give general help to people using your drupal distribution, and this general help will be continuously updated. An easy way to do this maybe would be to have an external drupal installation with a theme that looks exactly like the advanced help, and then render it in the local installation.

e2thex’s picture

e2thex commented

What if you put in a module_invoke_all() call in advanced_help_get_topics() that would return an array that is then merged with your info array. That way we could provide other ways of adding help entries.

I am looking to allow help entries to be nodes. for a module I am writing that places help links on node edit forms (for for the form and then one for each field as need)

It might me more complicated than that I have not look at the code to much, but if this is all that is need to hook into adding pages, it would be a big help.

e2thex’s picture

e2thex commented

I created a patch that will allow for a different module to hook in and add this functionality in #423188: Create hook for topics

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

And there is now a module that lets you author the help text more easily (using Drupal books), then export them. It even generates the needed tiny little module for you. http://drupal.org/project/helpinject

fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
commented
Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)

Does the helpinject solution fix your request ?

e2thex’s picture

e2thex commented

I would say that while, helpinject helps in creating help it does not allow one to point, to a remote site for help pages.

But I would also though out that one could use it to create a help module add that to the distribution and then update the module when there are changes

gisle’s picture

gisle
he/him
Primary language Norwegian Bokmål
Location Norway
commented
Issue summary: View changes
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Closed (won't fix)

This feature request is 5 years old and linking to off-site docs seems out of scope for the project (re #1).

Also: Advanced help pages are HTML. What is stopping you from embedding links to external webpages in that HTML?