Jun 08
4
WP Help is a plugin that allows you to create a simple help or instructional page in the Wordpress Admin that will display customized information of your choosing.
I’ve been using WordPress for client’s sites for quite sometime and most of the time I have to explain how to use the software at least 2 or 3 times - especially if I’ve implemented features using custom fields or special plugins. It would be great if there were a resource that they could always refer to easily while they are in the process of creating.
I came across a plugin that did this but is was not easily updatable and had some issues with a couple of installations. So I’ve improved on it and here is WP Help inspired by Sam Burdge’s wp-instructions.
I have plans to make the editing area more useful. I would love to implement TinyMCE but it doesn’t seem to play well. If anybody knows how to do this please leave a comment.
I’ve also include a sample text file of How to Create a Post in WordPress for you to try out. Just open the text file and copy and paste to the configuration screen.
Download
Installation
- Download, unzip and upload to your WordPress plugins directory.
- Activate the plugin within you WordPress Administration Backend.
- Go to the ‘Help & Instructions’ options page in the ’settings’ menu.
- Type in the title that you would like to appear on the Help & Instructions page.
- Enter the content you would like your users to see. You can enter html if you like.
- Click the ‘update options’ button and you are good to go.
Advanced Options
How to change the title of the main menu tab
- Open up the plugin file ‘wp_help_config.php’
- On or about line 16 you will see this code:
add_menu_page('Help & Instructions', 'Help & Instructions' - 3. Change the text in the quotes to what you would like your new tab to read.
- Example: If you want your tab to just say ‘Help’ your line would look like this:
add_menu_page('Help', 'Help' - Save the file and upload back to your plugins folder if necessary
If you would like the help page to be in a sub-menu like ‘manage’ or ‘design’
- Open up the plugin file ‘wp_help_config.php’
- On or about line 16 you will see the code:
add_menu_page('Help & Instructions', - Change the text ‘add_menu_page’ to ‘add_management_page’ for the ‘manage menu’ or change the text to ‘add_theme_page ‘for the presentation menu’
Screenshots
19 Responses to “WP Help”
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June 5th, 2008
Dang, I had something like this half-built already! :D
June 5th, 2008
Keep Going! Maybe yours will be better!
June 5th, 2008
great idea and very useful!
June 5th, 2008
OK, I’d love to use this… but what I’d REALLY love would be the ability to have multiple help pages under that Help & Instructions menu. And since the editor/TinyMCE is giving you fits…
Shouldn’t there be a way to integrate this with WP’s pages? Say, perhaps, that “Help & Instructions” is a special Page Parent, and any pages added under it appear in the Help & Instructions menu? And, of course, they’re hidden from the rest of WP, so they don’t show up on the main pages (perhaps using Roles & Capabilities for this, so that only people using the backend see it).
Anybody want to tackle that? Because I’d love to have multiple help pages available for the folks using the sites I build with WP.
June 6th, 2008
Hey Rich,
I think that is a great idea. To start out, you could always password protect the pages. They wouldn’t be in the backend, which isn’t ideal but it would be a start.
The other way you could make it work is to just duplicate this plugin a few times. You would need to change the function names and menu names but if you only had two or three it could work as a temporary solution.
I will look into creating more pages for the plugin because that would make this plugin a lot more useful. I’m not a coder but I’ll see what I can cook up.
June 6th, 2008
First, I agree with Rich, the ability to have multiple help pages under that Help & Instructions menu would be a great enhancement.
Second, a hint: What ’bout changing
echo $opt_val;
and
echo $opt_val2;
to
echo stripslashes($opt_val);
and
echo stripslashes($opt_val2);
in wp_help.php and wp_help_config.php,
to get a clean output and avoid “\’” !?
June 6th, 2008
Hey Mark,
Sounds good, thanks for the tip.
June 9th, 2008
This got potential. But I think it need some more work. One thing is the ability to add images. Maybe something like quicktags would work.
June 9th, 2008
Mattias,
Totally agree. I will look into it.
Also, if anyone has made modifications or improvements, please feel free to share.
July 22nd, 2008
Hi,
is it possible to have >1 help page with this plugin ?
July 22nd, 2008
Evaldas,
A quick and dirty way to get more pages is to just duplicate the plugin.
Like I said above, you’ll need to change the names of the functions in the wp_help_config.php file so that there is not a conflict, but that should work.
July 22nd, 2008
Thank you for your fast answer ;)
I think, it could be great to do the same thing by using just one plugin (no duplicates).
Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find enough time to do it by myself.
July 22nd, 2008
I totally agree. I would love to put that in when I get some time.
If you ever do it would be great to see it.