The Advanced Help module provides a framework that allows module and theme developers to provide hierarchical pages with help topics.
It differs from the core Help module by allowing for multiple help topics, and by separating help text from code, instead placing it in separate .html and/or .md-files. These separate help files may be included in the repo and distributed along with the module or theme project.
The help topics can be placed in an hierarchical book, allowing for top-down navigation.
The help topics can be easily translated simply by copying them into the right translations directory.
The advanced help framework ties into Drupal's search system and can be set to be fully indexed. [This is not yet upgraded to Drupal 9/10.]
Help topics may include images. See “Image examples” is the Advanced Help Example submodule for examples.
If there is a README.md
or README.txt
in the repo, the content of that file may be shown as well.
Installation
You must use composer to install the 8.x-1.x branch of the project. To see the exact command line see "Install:" under "Releases" near the bottom of this page. (Please note that you cannot use ludwig as a replacement for composer to install this module.
Roadmap
This project is the most used extension for creating on screen help within a Drupal site. Where is it headed?
It has been suggested to create core help-features based upon those provided by Advanced Help. See these issues for background:
- #402404: Use approach like D7 Advanced Help for the Help module
- #2592487: [meta] Help system overhaul
However, eventually another route was picked for Drupal version 8 and later, see next section.
While keeping an eye on these efforts, until further notice, the current team will continue to maintain and develop Advanced Help for all supported versions of Drupal. Full releases for Drupal 7 and Drupal 9 exists. For Drupal 10 there is a tagged alpha release.
When the core framework for creating contextual in-line help and help topics becomes stable, the future of this project will be re-evaluated. If the features provided by a future release of the core is suited replace this project, it will be retired. Hopefully, we shall be able to create some tool to merge existing help texts into such a core framework.
Drupal 98 and later: Help Topics and Tour
- Help Topics is an experimental module intended to replace
hook_help
. - The core Tour module provides in-line help by means of tooltips. The core Views module makes use of this to provide context sensitive help.
Text format
In order for images to display properly, the next tagged release will use the "Full HTML" text filter for rendering HTML help pages. The documentation about Configuring text formats for security says that "you should only allow 'Full HTML' for registered users that you trust". I.e. only a trusted administrator should be allowed to install and edit help pages based upon this module. For discussion about this, please see this issue: #3299789: Use Full HTML as the text format.
Known problems
This module is incompatible with the Fast 404 module. Installing Fast 404 will produce 404 (File not found) errors if you try to look up README.txt
-files. See this issue #2039371: All README.txt links result in 404 Not Found for more information.
Support status
Reported bugs for all supported versions of the project will be fixed in a timely manner (provided the bug report describes how to reproduce the problem at will). Branches compatible with deprecated versions of Drupal core are not supported.
Community support in the form of patches are very welcome for all supported versions, and will be given priority. For QA, the project needs community support in the form of reviews of patches, development versions and releases.
The team hopes that the community is willing to help out by answering & closing support requests.
Please note that the primary goal of the module is to remain light-weight and simple. This means that not all feature requests will be implemented, even if they are a good idea. Feature requests accompanied by patches are more likely to make it into a release.
Credits
- merlinofchaos (original creator)
- redndahead
- dmitrig01
- amitgoyal
- fgm
- ikit-claw
- gnuget (D8 port)
- gisle (current maintainer, all supported versions)
Project information
- Maintenance fixes only
Considered feature-complete by its maintainers. - Module categories: Administration Tools, Content Editing Experience, Developer Tools
- 29,769 sites report using this module
- Created by merlinofchaos on , updated
- Drupal 10 is here!
The release 8.x-1.1-alpha3 is Drupal 10 compatible.
- Stable releases for this project are covered by the security advisory policy.
Look for the shield icon below.
Releases
First full release of Advanced Help for Drupal 8 and Drupal 9.
Pre-release version: 8.x-1.1-alpha3 released 10 Nov 2023 at 12:54 UTC
Version compatible with PHP 8.2.
Development version: 8.x-1.x-dev updated 6 Dec 2023 at 14:41 UTC
Fixes two minor bugs.
Development version: 7.x-1.x-dev updated 29 Apr 2020 at 07:15 UTC