Modifying Website Help Pages

[Alfuzzy]

Hey folks. I need to modify some of the "Help" pages on the site:

Admin Panel > Communication > Help Pages

How do I do this (please don't say only via the templates)? Lol

Thanks

 

[Paul B]

Edit the phrases named in the page content field, or the page content itself.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I think to edit the page content you need to enable developer mode (true) in src/config.php ?

 

[Alfuzzy]

Using Brogan's helpful advice above...I think I figured out how to do it. Looks like to modify an existing Help page...it's a template edit...which is pretty complex (let me explain).

I don't 100% remember how the Help pages were initially setup/created. My site was migrated from vBulletin 4.2.5 to XF...and I'm thinking all of the current Help pages are a result of the migration. Is this possible?...since I don't remember setting up these Help pages from scratch after the migration?

If this is true (the help pages were part of the migration from vB)...the current Help pages that were migrated from vBulletin look fine...but there's an insane amount of code in there (mostly formatting code)...that if I was creating these Help pages from scratch myself (with a fresh/virgin install of XF)...I wouldn't have used nearly this much formatting code.

Here's just a small example of the code just to format a couple sentences of one of the sites Help pages:



Since my site was migrated from vBulletin...what I'm trying to understand better is...how would Help pages get created/generated with a brand new website with zero content...with a fresh install of Xenforo?

I do see in the Admin panel:

Communication > Help Pages

...there's an "Add Help Page" button. And if it's clicked on...you get a page with all the input areas for a new Help page.

Is this the ONLY way Help pages for a brand new website (with a fresh install of XF) would get generated? One Help page at a time...and the person or persons doing the Help page creation would need to be at least minimally familiar with how to setup a Help Page using HTML code?

Just trying to get a better idea of how setting up XF Help pages is done when nothing is there to start with.

Thanks

 

[Alfuzzy]

I think to edit the page content you need to enable developer mode (true) in src/config.php ?

Hello Mr Lucky...thanks for the help. Would this procedure differ from what I described in my last post?

Thanks

 

[Mr Lucky]

Dev mode just makes it possible to edit them.

Help pages do need html, but your imported pages do appear to have an insane amount of unnecessary bloated code.

I would suggest you do learn some basic html and especially css, which allows much simpler and cleaner code than what you have.

You can do the css via the extra.less template , it’s not too complex for most purposes once you gone through a couple of simple primers

 

[briansol]

I highly suggest removing all that markup and just use a basic set of codes like
h2 and h3 for headings and p for text blocks.

you especially don't want body and head tags in there.

 

[Alfuzzy]

Help pages do need html, but your imported pages do appear to have an insane amount of unnecessary bloated code.

Yes I totally agree (that's why I provided the screenshot so you guys didn't think I was "crazy")!

Someone else set up these help pages long ago (could have been as much as 5-10 or even more years ago)...when the site was running vBulletin. Not sure why so much formatting code was needed.

I would suggest you do learn some basic html and especially css, which allows much simpler and cleaner code than what you have.

I do know enough html & css to setup these help pages if I needed to do them from scratch (it's not too difficult...but would take me a bunch of time to redo them since I'm not an expert).

Thing is...the actual content of the help pages that were migrated from vBulletin look fine (what website visitors actually see)...thus redoing them is sort of unnecessary (even though they are bloated). The only reason I need to modify some of the Help pages...some of the hyperlinks in the some of the help pages aren't pointing to where they should (thus these links are getting 404 error codes).

Thanks for the help

 

[Alfuzzy]

I highly suggest removing all that markup and just use a basic set of codes like
h2 and h3 for headings and p for text blocks.

you especially don't want body and head tags in there.

I totally agree...way too much code in there for what the Help pages are doing (just communicating text-based info).

You mentioned "especially don't want body and head tags in there". If the Help Pages as they stand now look fine (formatting looks fine, layout looks fine, and page performance is fine). Until I get motivated to re-code them from the beginning...is any of the current html in them doing any harm currently?

Thanks

 

[briansol]

it is invalid to have multiple head and body sections.

since the main xf template already has you in the body, closing the head and starting a new body tag is not valid html and some browsers may go haywire.

 

[Alfuzzy]

...some browsers may go haywire.

This is what's important to me. I've tested the pages in all of the major browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge...and a couple of the less used one's...Opera, Brave)...and all looks fine. But of course no guarantee stability will continue with future browser versions.

Thanks

 

[Nettpreneur]

I think to edit the page content you need to enable developer mode (true) in src/config.php ?

Please what's the syntax for this?

 

[Mr Lucky]

Please what's the syntax for this?

$config['development']['enabled'] = true;

 

[Nettpreneur]

@Mr Lucky , Thank you.