Contextual Help Text

3 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: October 16, 2017   (RSS)

I am using the editor as an application to allow customers to make slideshows. There are a lot of moving parts and not all of its features are intuitive so within the CMS builder I would like to add some contextual help. Preferably by allowing a user to click on a fields label or adding a clickable graphic '?' which would result in a popup with an explainer on how to use that label.

Is this doable with an addon? 

By Dave - October 16, 2017

Hi Halifernus, 

Yes, absolutely.  The most basic implementation of that would be to enter HTML in the "Field Label" field in the field editor.  Such as: 

Title <a href="#" onclick="alert('more info here');">?</a>

And then you could trigger additional popup dialog there.  If there's a specific javascript dialog library you want to use you, what I recommend is mocking it up in HTML first then figuring out how to get the code in the CMSB (post and we can help).

Another method I often use for creating inline documentation is the "separator" field types.  You can set them as "Collapsible" and "Closed By Default" so the user could have three fields such as the following at the top: 

  • Separator: header bar "Instructions (click for help)" - [x] Collapsible [x] Closed By Default
  • Separator: HTML - include any help text you want
  • Separator: header bar "Record Details"

The collapsed separator bar hides everything until the next separator bar, so that would allow them to show instructions on demand.  Alternatively, you could have the collapsed help text at the bottom and you wouldn't need a second separator to close it, or you could just put whatever custom html/jquery/etc you wanted in the HTML of a separator HTML block to run any custom code you wanted.

Hope that helps!

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com