Feature request: HELP Contexts for APPS

[Githopp192]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Nextcloud prides itself on its many apps in the Appstore.
In fact, the variety of apps is very impressive and users benefit from it as well. On the other hand, there is practically a detailed description for very few apps; if a description is available, it is usually known to the administrator of the cloud (because he also got familiar with it during the installation of the app). But many apps in the cloud itself, don't even have a short explanation of how the apps work and many users are frustrated about it.

Describe the solution you'd like

To greatly improve this situation, one might consider that developers are encouraged to integrate a help context into the cloud when developing apps.
(Nextcloud could also make this mandatory for developers).
This would dramatically improve the user experience in the app, in the cloud for the users and would have an impact on the developers and the reputation of Nextcloud.

Describe alternatives you've considered
This app context-help could also be implemented via web links to a general manual page.

[szaimen]

cc @nextcloud/designers is this something we should do?

[skjnldsv]

Not sure designers is the team to call?

[szaimen]

Okay so which is the right team for this?

[skjnldsv]

everyone? 🙈

[szaimen]

Since this is a request about suggesting adding a help section to each app, maybe we should add this to the ap developers documentation as suggestion?

[juliushaertl]

I think for designers this would be still good to think about when discussing possible first run experience in apps where we could guide through the first steps with empty content screens or provide a link to the documentation somewhere, so this could be something for a general styleguide. (cc @nimisha-vijay as I remember you were talking about something in that regard)

There is a dedicated documentation section in the appinfo/info.xml that can be used by app developers for that:

https://nextcloudappstore.readthedocs.io/en/latest/developer.html#app-metadata
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/developer_manual/app_development/info.html

<documentation>
        <user>https://github.com/nextcloud/news/wiki#user-documentation</user>
        <admin>https://github.com/nextcloud/news#readme</admin>
        <developer>https://github.com/nextcloud/news/wiki#developer-documentation</developer>
    </documentation>

documentation/user

        optional
        must contain an URL to the user documentation
        will be rendered on the app detail page

documentation/admin

        optional
        must contain an URL to the admin documentation
        will be rendered on the app detail page

documentation/developer

        optional
        must contain an URL to the developer documentation
        will be rendered on the app detail page

[ghost]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity and seems to be missing some essential information. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[szaimen]

@skjnldsv @juliushaertl can we add 1. to develop then for this issue?

[juliushaertl]

I think we had a section about app help that should be part of the settings dialog in the new design guidelindes that @nimisha-vijay is working on, which would cover that i think.

[Spartachetto]

@juliushaertl wouldn't it be possible to provide a better and integrated help functionality directly in the interface?

Something like integrated tool tips in the vue components that the app developers could use to provide a guide to the users? If that would be available, after some time you could also provide guidelines on help and maybe a minimum required level of explanations for an app to be deemed "user friendly".

[stefan-niedermann]

my two cents to this topic:

wouldn't it be possible to provide a better and integrated help functionality directly in the interface?

For each app? Personally i disagree: The apps should be self explaining (at least for the basic usage). If they are not, the need to get improved from a UX perspective. Simple things like empty content screens can achieve a lot. Example: Instead of "No files" use "No files - press the + in the top left to upload or create one"

The apps are already quite generic: Files, Music, Notes, Maps - one knows what to expect before installing the app, and everyone should be able to just use it. A complete documentation might be useful for specialized apps, but for usual apps it should just not be necessary at all - at least for basic usage. And for advanced usages and edge cases, the documentation should not clutter the UI for everyone else but can be outside.

Of course i agree that all the apps are not perfect yet, but instead of just putting a book everywhere, we should identify the problems, discuss proper solutions and apply them with a PR 🙂

[juliushaertl]

Something to discuss for @nextcloud/designers then 😉