New User Help Section Preview

[Peter Duggan]

So I've been working hard on this and think it's about ready for some public feedback:

http://smf.petestack.com/help/

Hopefully it *might* make the next SMF beta but, since that depends on supplying finished sources to the translators as well as integrating it into the board, your comments and/or suggestions would be appreciated sooner rather than later...

For the interested, the HTML files are generated through XSLT stylesheets from XML sources which we'll be supplying to the translators, but no decision has yet been made on whether we'll be releasing just the HTML or the whole lot with the packages.

Please note, above all, that this is a *pre-release preview*, meaning that it's not only just as 'beta' as anything else here but just as copyright! While we hope that you find it useful (and can help to make it even more useful), we do not expect to see any of it anywhere else until it becomes part of the distributed packages!

[Oldiesmann]

Looks great! I hope it does make it to the next release...

[Peter Duggan]

So perhaps it looks nice (thanks!), but what about the *content*?

For instance, here's one obvious little half-truth I've just discovered for myself (quote from the 'posting' page):

While we can start by clicking the 'B' (Bold) button and typing our text between the tags it produces, it's often more practical to type the text first, highlight it and then click the button.

NB Doesn't work in Opera!

[Peter Duggan]

Suppose I'm just 'thinking out loud' here, but...

This quote from the 'searching page':

Assuming the forum is running the SMF default theme (or a derivative of it), there should be both a 'Simple Search' field (partnered by an 'Advanced Search' text link) in the collapsable top section and a search option in the main menu.

Should really say something more like this:

Assuming the forum is running the SMF default theme (or a derivative of it), there should be both a simple 'Search' field (partnered by an 'Advanced Search' text link) in the collapsable top section and a 'Search' option in the main menu.

Which might not look much different, but is a more accurate description of what's there.

So please feel free to flag up any other similar cases of missing or misleading info (which is partly why this has been posted here!), to which I'll just add now that the new left-to-right and right-to-left BBC is already on my 'to do' list.

[Owdy]

Looks very good PD! Those example images are good idea. How they are linked? Imean if i want translate images too, what are dir you are planned?

[Peter Duggan]

Everything's translatable! So you get something like this to translate:

Code Select Expand

<secheading>The Board Index</secheading>
<paragraph>While the board index (forum home page) is packed with all kinds of information and links, the core of the interface (at least in the SMF default theme) normally looks something like this:</paragraph>
<board-index-demo>
<!-- This data is used to demonstrate the default board index interface. -->
<forum-name>Forum Name</forum-name>
<category-name>Category Name</category-name>
<board-name>Board Name</board-name>
<board-description>Board Description</board-description>
<post-info>Number of topics and posts in this board</post-info>
<last-post>Date, time, subject and author of last post</last-post>
<new-posts>New Posts</new-posts>
<no-new-posts>No New Posts</no-new-posts>
<alt-mark-as-read>Mark ALL messages as read</alt-mark-as-read>
</board-index-demo>

And it produces this (or its Finnish equivalent):

http://smf.petestack.com/help/index.html#board

(So go on, click the 'Category Name' or 'Mark as Read' button!)

Since it's just code and all the images should already be there, there's no bandwidth hit either, but I still have to code in a little language picker to choose the correct buttons for the translations.

PS This button language thing should happen automagically as far as you're concerned. So, if the file says Finnish, you get Finnish buttons (providing they've been uploaded) without having to *do* anything!

[Owdy]

Cool! Good job man

[Oldiesmann]

Nice

[A.M.A]

two things I would love to see in the new Help System:

• Case sensitive (i.e. the help system will knows what part are you in and thus displays its corresponding help page)
• Searchable help (i.e. a way to search the help)

[Acf]

nice i see topic icons in the helpfile now i can delete them in the message index (the ones that are suposed to help)