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Understanding Context-Sensitive Help Processing

This section discusses how the context-sensitive help works in the PeopleSoft Online Help. When you request help from a PeopleSoft application page, the software generates a URL and passes it to your default web browser. This URL is generated by resolving two variables into a string value that is stored in the system. Here is an example of the syntax of the string, with variables wrapped in percent signs (%):

http://example.com:5080/help-PB/help.html?ContextID=%CONTEXT_ID%&LangCD=%LANG_CD%

Your installation documentation contains instructions for setting the value of the system help string. See PeopleTools Installation for your database platform, “Installing PeopleSoft Online Help.”

The string is a URL pointing to the help.html page, which is in the global (docroot) level of the online help site. During the help call, the variables are resolved as follows:

Using the preceding syntax example, if an English user calls help from the PeopleSoft Enterprise Components Options page, the resulting URL looks like this, with the resolved values (PSOPTIONS and ENG) in bold:

http://example.com:5080/help-PB/help.html?ContextID=PSOPTIONS&LangCD=ENG

When the help URL is passed to a browser, the help.html page opens, and the JavaScript logic inside uses the two passed arguments (Context ID and LangCD) to load the appropriate context ID lookup files. These files map valid application context IDs to locations in the help system. The lookup file contents are searched and, when a match is found for the ContextID value, help.html redirects the browser to the related location. If multiple matches are found, a new browser window displays a list of help topic links from which the user can choose.

The following JavaScript sequence of events occurs when help.html is opened:

  1. Change to the language folder that is specified by the LangCD value that is passed to help.html.

    Note: The current help site supports English only.

  2. Load all docroot/language/product family/helpid.txt files under all product family folders.

    Example: help-PB/eng/pt/helpid.txt

    The helpid.txt file contains all context IDs (also called help IDs) that are specified in all help pages within the product family folder. The file lists each context ID and the path to the corresponding help page (relative to the parent product family folder), separated by a tab. If a context ID has multiple destinations, the destinations are separated by a semicolon and each destination includes additional identifying data (product or subject title, page title, and section title), separated by tabs.

    The following example shows three entries in the helpid.txt file. The first two entries each have a context ID and path, separated by tabs. The third entry has multiple destinations, separated by a semicolon. The third entry is in bold.

    ICCopyCust	tupa/task_PersonalizingPages-0714c7
USER_CHANGE_PSWD	tupa/task_ChangingYourPassword-0714cf
CHANGE_PASSWORD	tupa/task_ChangingYourPassword-0714cf	PeopleSoft Applications User’s Guide	Changing Your Password	Changing Your Password	;tsec/task_WorkingWithPasswords-c076d8	Security Administration	Working With Passwords	Changing Passwords

  3. Search all loaded helpid.txt files for the context ID.

  4. Display one of the following destinations in the browser:

    • If the context ID in the helpid.txt file contains only one destination, display the destination help page at the path that is listed.

    • If the context ID has multiple destinations, open a new browser window and display a list of links to the possible destinations.

    • If no context ID is found, display a message and link to the PeopleSoft Online Help home page.

    • If the var altHelpURL value is specified in the common.js file, the page is redirected to the URL that is specified and if the context ID exists at that site, the corresponding help page appears.

      See Include Previous PeopleBook Library Sites in Context-Sensitive Help Lookups for more information about the common.js file.