Defining Help Texts

Defining Help Texts

Introduction 

Help can be defined on several levels in Comflow but is centered around field help. It is accessed via the lead text of the field in the portal.  When you hover a lead text that has field help, you see a question mark. If you then click you get a help dialog, see below

The help can consist of four different types of help (with the design identity it represents in parenthesis)

• Field help (column)
• View help (portlet)
• Function (workflow)
• Application (application/subfolder)

All help is defined as html, so it can be edited with any html editor. Comflow studio provides a ComflowHTML editor aimed for editing help.

Field Help

Field help is defined in the Repository folder of the project, under MetadataId-folder and the "ColumnHelp" folder. It is also defined based on language, so it needs to be in a subfolder with language id, like "en" or "sv".

The field help is defined as an html file with "colhlp" as extension. The name of the file shall always be identical to the column that it shall represent, like the column ProcessName.colum is represented by the ProcessName.colhlp for its field help. See the structure below:

View, Function and Application help

For these types of help, they are defined and stored in the "Help" folder in the project. See below:

View help

View help is stored under "Portlets" and the language folder. Then it follows the same structure as the portlets it shall represent. The id of the view help file must correspond to the id of the portlet that it represents with .viewhlp as extension.

The path for a portlet "WorkItemDetail" will then be:  /project/Help/Portlets/en/Asynch/WorkItemDetail.viewhlp

Function help

Function help is stored under "Workflows" and the language folder. Then it follows the same structure as the workflows it shall represent. The id of the function help file must correspond to the id of the workflow that it represents with .funchlp as extension.

The path for a workflow "MyWorkListsV4 " will then be:  /project/Help/Workflows/en/AsynchWorkflow/MyWorkListsV4.funchlp

Application help

Application help is stored under "Applications" and the language folder. Then it follows the same structure as the workflows application (subfolder) it shall represent. The id of the application help file must correspond to the id of the subfolder/application that it represents with .apphlp as extension. 

The path for an application "Asynch" will then be: /project/Help/Applications/en/Asynch.apphlp