Skip to the content
Documentation
Help Start
Reading in:
  • German: 9,059 of 9,059 pages
About the help in other languages
All help pages

Help maintained as content: review workflow, "Was this helpful?", token clients, EPUB checks, history, public pages (6.0.15)

The parts of the help plan (help-system.md) and its style guide that were still open, or only a convention, after the DITA export, stored e-books and overdue reviews are in 6.0.15. This page says what changes for a site…

Download as PDF

Address: https://doc.exponential.earth/exphelp/viewer/bc/6.0/help-content-workflow-feedback.md

On this page

Help maintained as content: review workflow, "Was this helpful?", token clients, EPUB checks, history, public pages (6.0.15)

The parts of the help plan (help-system.md) and its style guide that were still open, or only a convention, after the DITA export, stored e-books and overdue reviews are in 6.0.15. This page says what changes for a site that runs help maintained as content, and what to do after the deploy.

What changes

PartWhat it doesWhere
The author does not releasethe state Released is taken out of an assignment when the current user created the help object's current versionevery state assignment (eZContentOperationCollection::updateObjectState())
Review workflow at the topicthe card Review and release under a topic: the steps the user's roles allow as buttons, the style guide check of the topic, its answers to "Was this helpful?"exphelp/topic/<help_id> (admin, admin4), the POST view exphelp/state
Released help_idsevery help_id is recorded when its topic is released; the validator reports a rename (help-id.renamed), a reuse (help-id.reused) and a released help_id without a topic (help-id.gone)table exphelp_help_id, check --fix
More style guide rulesreview-date.too-far, version.successor, verb.mix (WARNING), language.sentence-too-long, language.paragraph-too-long (NOTICE)./console exp:help:content check
"Was this helpful?"yes, or no with a reason, per topic and day, nothing about who answeredtable exphelp_feedback, exphelp/feedback, ./console exp:help:content feedback
Context help for token clients/api/help/v1/topic/<help_id> and /manual/<remote_id> with an OAuth token or a personal API key with the new scope helpREST provider help
EPUB checksepubcheck and Ace by DAISY on every EPUB, where the site names their commandsEpubCheckCommand, AceCommand, BookChecks; export --check
History in gitthe DITA export written into a git repository and committed on each run that changed somethingcronjob part exphelp, DitaHistoryDirectory; dita --commit
Public pagesthe full and line views of the help classes on the public siteextension exphelpsite (per public siteaccess)

Nothing here changes a site that has not installed help as content: the state operation returns at once for objects that are not help, the topic page and the feedback view are not reachable, the cronjob part says it is skipped.

Behaviour changes

  • The author of a help object can no longer release it, in the Object states tab either. A user with the role Help release who also wrote the current version of a topic sees no Release button and gets the state not assigned (the other states of the same assignment are). A site with a single editor sets exphelp.ini [ContentSettings] ReleaseByAuthor=enabled. The command line seeds (seed-topics --release, build-manuals --release) are not limited.
  • The role Help editor gets exphelp/context with the next roles step (exp:help:content roles or install): the "JSON" link on a topic's page works for help editors, and a help editor can make an API key with the scope help.
  • exphelp/feedback is a new policy function. Readers with exphelp/read may answer already; Anonymous gets it only with AnonymousFeedback=enabled and the roles step.
  • The validator reports more. check may now list WARNINGs and NOTICEs it did not list before (review dates more than 12 months away, or 6 for the areas privacy and account; long sentences in topics for visitors and members; a mix of "click" and "tap"). None of them is an ERROR, so check keeps passing, except help-id.renamed and help-id.reused, which only appear after help_ids were recorded.
  • The REST API has a provider help (rest.ini [ApiProvider] ProviderClass[help]) and an API key scope help. A site that lists its own providers in an override keeps them; the scope is offered on the API keys page to users who hold exphelp/context.
  • The cronjob part infrequent runs exphelp.php. It removes answers older than FeedbackKeepDays (730) and, only with DitaHistoryDirectory set, writes and commits the DITA export.

New settings

exphelp.ini [ContentSettings]: ReleaseByAuthor (disabled), SentenceWordsPublic (20), SentenceWordsTechnical (25), ParagraphSentencesPublic (4), PlainLanguageAudiences[] (Visitors, Members), ReviewMonths (12), ShortReviewMonths (6), ShortReviewAreas[] (privacy, account), Feedback (enabled), FeedbackKeepDays (730), AnonymousFeedback (disabled), EpubCheckCommand, AceCommand (empty), BookChecks (report), DitaHistoryDirectory (empty), DitaHistoryLogin (admin), DitaHistoryAuthor (empty). rest.ini: [ApiProvider] ProviderClass[help], [ApiKeySettings] Scopes[help], ScopeNames[help], RouteScopes[expHelpRestController_topic], RouteScopes[expHelpRestController_manual], [expHelpRestController_CacheSettings] ApplicationCache=disabled. cronjob.ini: exphelp.php in [CronjobPart-infrequent], [CronjobPart-exphelp].

Database

Two new tables, exphelp_help_id and exphelp_feedback, in the kernel schemas of MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite and in share/db_schema.dba. An existing installation gets them from the database update (update/database/<engine>/6.0/dbupdate-6.0.0-6.0.15.sql, written with IF NOT EXISTS) or, on any engine (Oracle and MongoDB included), from the command's new step tables. Without them "Was this helpful?" is off and no help_id is recorded; everything else works.

After the deploy 

php bin/php/ezpgenerateautoloads.php -k        # or: ./console exp:velocity deploy --kernel
./console exp:help:content install -s <admin siteaccess> --dry-run
./console exp:help:content install --apply -s <admin siteaccess>     # tables, the editor's exphelp/context
./console exp:help:content install --apply -s <admin siteaccess>     # No change.
./console exp:help:content check --apply -s <admin siteaccess> --fix # records the help_ids of the Released topics

A server that keeps PHP running (PHP-FPM, Exponential Velocity) must load the changed kernel file kernel/content/ezcontentoperationcollection.php; clear the INI cache (--clear-tag=ini) for the new settings and the REST provider. For public help pages, add ActiveAccessExtensions[]=exphelpsite to the public siteaccess only, and clear the template override cache. The interface strings are in the 24 translation catalogues that have the help's context (kernel/exphelp).

Something wrong on this page? Report an error

Documentation license

This documentation is free documentation, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later.

Exponential Copyright © 1998-2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x