Dear Koha community
On 2017-04-22 I filed Bug 18483 "Customised help: Enhance staff client
with news based, easily editable help system".
https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18483#c0
The Enhancement was ready for Sign off on 2017-04-30, was signed off on
2017-05-02, and, after some discussion, passed QA on 2017-10-27, and the
same day was set to "In Discussion".
The aim of the bug is described in the initial comment. It fills a
request we have since 2012. In short, it is about having an additional
help system that allows libraries to create their own, library specific
help information, taking advantage of all functionality we already have
with the news system.
Initial comment:
https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18483#c0
---Quote---
"Koha's staff client has a file based help system with an edit function
for customising. However, the edited files have to be saved and restored
with each release. Otherwise they are overwritten.
As an enhancement or alternative, the existing news system can be used
to implement a complementing help system. Similar to the news, the text
can be created for all branches or for individual branches. Help is
context sensitive (based on the existing help system), and it can be
created / edited directly from the help page (based on a user permission).
The display can be managed with a system preference (Bug 18472: Add
system preference CustomOnlineHelpStaff to hide / select custom online
help system)."
---End quote ---
Author's answer on a question of QA team member M. de Rooy (asked on Bug
18472, Comment 21), moved to Bug 18483:
https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18483#c21
---Quote---
Need:
- Having a user editable, page aware help system is a long outstanding
need. First time I was asked for goes back to 2012.
- We have libraries interested in Koha who ask for in their requirements.
- Writing a brand new help module would take a lot of time. And who
would fund it?
User:
- The news system works very well and libraries are used to use it. The
help additons introduced in Bug 18483 enhances the news system to host
custom help as well.
- From a user standpoint it is easy to use, you can add whatever you
want / need as help. All the benefits of the news system can be used.
Custom help items can easyly be added / edited.
- It can be turned on and off (combined with the existing file based
help system or 'standalone'). This Bug 18472 is the basis for turning on
and off and/or add additional help systems.
- There is no change in behavior of news and file based help system if
turned off (however this patch allows to turn off the edit function of
the existing file based help system).
Impact:
- In Bug 18483, I paid great attention to have a minimal impact on
existing code. No changes in .pm files were needed.
- There is a small database change to have a field to host the page key
if a news item is used as help item.
Things to come:
- Since the news system works for both staff client and OPAC it will be
easy to implement the editable help for OPAC as well (Bug 18515)
So I kindly ask for Bug 18472 and Bug 18483 to make part of Koha.
---End quote---
After the enhancement has been put to "In discussion", I kindly ask the
Koha community to vote about Bug 18483 as outlined in:
https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Bug_and_Enhancement_Discussion
Thanks and kind regards
Marc Véron
Koha Support Schweiz
www.koha-support.ch
Contributing to Koha since 2012
_______________________________________________
Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org
Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
