need_help

A simple help system using Rails Engine.

Installation

Just install the plugin with script/plugin install git://github.com/fnando/need_help.git.

Usage

1) Run the task rake help:sync to copy the required migrations. Run db:migrate to update the database schema.

2) Create the file config/help/help.yml. This file will hold all categories and topics. The syntax is quite simple:

"Category 1":
  "Topic 1.1": topic11.textile
  "Topic 1.2": topic12.textile
"Category 2":
  "Topic 2.1": topic21.textile
  "Topic 2.2": topic22.textile

3) Create the files you specify (*.textile) on config/help directory.

4) Import the topics with rake help:update

5) Start the server script/server and go to http://localhost:3000/help to view the help index.

6) This plugin has two dependencies: http://github.com/fnando/has_permalink and http://github.com/fnando/has_markup.

Routes

This plugins adds 3 routing paths:

• /help: the main help page
• /help/[category permalink]: the whole help category page
• /help/v/[topic permalink]: the topic page. This action accepts 3 formats: xml, json and html; note that the html format will redirect to the category page unless request.xhr? returns true, which in this case will render the show.erb.html template.

If you want to override/localize the routing, use the following snippet (which is added by the plugin):

map.with_options :controller => "help" do |url|
  url.help                "/help", :action => "index"
  url.help_page           "/help/v/:permalink", :action => "show"
  url.formatted_help_page "/help/v/:permalink.:format", :action => "show"
  url.help_category       "/help/:permalink", :action => "by_category"
end

As you can see, you have some named routings.

Customization

To customize the view, just create two views at app/views/help/index.erb.html and app/views/help/show.erb.html. There's three instance variables: @categories, @category and @topics, depending on the view you're working.

You need to set two keys for your locale file (config/locales/en.yml):

en:
  back_to_top: "Back to top"
  see_all: "See all"

Here's some CSS:

body {
    font-family: Georgia;
    font-size: 14px;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 40px;
}

.help h3,
.help-summary h2 a {
    color: #900;
    font-size: 18px;
    margin-bottom: 0;
}

.help-summary h2 a {
    text-decoration: none;
}

.help-summary h2 a:hover {
    text-decoration: underline;
}

.help p {
    line-height: 160%;
    margin: 0;
    padding-bottom: 10px;
}

a {
    color: rgb(54, 113, 161);
}

p.top a {
    font-weight: bold;
}

p.top a:after {
    content: "↑";
}

ul.topics {
    margin-left: 0;
    padding-left: 20px;
}

ul.topics li {
    margin: 5px 0;
}

h2#index {
    font-size: 24px;
    margin: 0;
}

.help {
    border-top: 1px dotted #888;
}

TODO

• Write specs

Running specs

Create a new project with Rails 2.3, install the plugin and its dependencies and run the command ruby vendor/plugins/need_help/spec/need_help_spec.rb -c from the project's root.

License

Copyright (c) 2009 Nando Vieira

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.