smkdm / cuba-component-help-system

CUBA component that offers a context help system for your CUBA application.

CUBA Platform Component - Help system

This application component offers a context help system for your CUBA application.

Installation

1. Add the following maven repository https://dl.bintray.com/balvi/cuba-components to the build.gradle of your CUBA application:

   buildscript {

    //...
    
    repositories {
    
        // ...
    
        maven {
            url  "https://dl.bintray.com/balvi/cuba-components"
        }
    }
    
    // ...
   

   }

2. Select a version of the add-on which is compatible with the platform version used in your project:

Platform Version	Add-on Version
7.2.x	0.8.x
7.1.x	0.7.x
7.0.x	0.6.x
6.10.x	0.5.x
6.9.x	skipped
6.8.x	0.3.x
6.7.x	0.2.x
6.6.x	0.1.x

The latest version is: 0.8.0

Add custom application component to your project:

• Artifact group: de.balvi.cuba.helpsystem
• Artifact name: help-system-global
• Version: add-on version

Usage

Defining help texts

To use the help system, users can define help texts for certain screens (even components) of the application. These texts are stored in the databse.

Usage of the help texts in the application

When the user uses a particular screen of your application, there is a help button on the upper right of the screen. Using that will open the help information for this particular screen.

The @HasHelp Annotation support only screens created with the legacy GUI-API.

In order to make a screen available for help text, just add the @HasHelp Annotation on your controller and extend from AnnotatableAbstract(Lookup|Editor) like this:

@HasHelp
class CustomerBrowse extends AnnotatableAbstractLookup {
   ...
}

Starting with the version supporting CUBA 7.1 the application component also support the new GUI-API by using a mixin interface class.

To make the help text available in a screen created with the new GUI-API, just add the implements statement to your class definition like this:

class NewGuiCustomerBrowse extends StandardLookup<NewGuiCustomer> implements WithHelpSystem {
   ...
}

For more information on the annotation topic, you can take a look at the declarative-controllers application component.

Now you can take a look at the screen you annotated and will see the help button on the upper right:

Starting with version 0.7 ot the application component a first approach for a usage of the Component-ID was added.

By creating context help texts with given Screen and Component-ID values you are now able to select these texts when you add a help text link inside your help text.