Customizing Online Help

Oracle Clinical provides utilities for implementing a customized version of the system's extended help (Xhelp), which is HTML-based and context-sensitive. By setting up custom help through the system, you can activate a button in Oracle Clinical's field help window that, when clicked by an end user, displays your information. The system determines the user's environment by determining the form, block, and task for the current focus. You can activate or deactivate both Oracle Clinical's help (the More button) and your own (the Custom Help button).

Oracle Clinical's help system has a three-frame HTML interface that has embedded Java script macros and XML metadata. However, the application should work with any file type that your computers recognize. You can write topic files to suit your needs and completely ignore our help system, or you can copy our system into a new directory, rewrite the topic files of your choice, and then configure calls to them.

For more information, see:

• Modifying Calls to Online Help Topic Files
  
• Copying Online Help Topic Files
  
• Placing Custom Help Files
  

Modifying Calls to Online Help Topic Files

You can create customized HTML online help files with a context sensitive call from any window in Oracle Clinical. To see your online help, users click Help and then Custom.

Create your own HTML files, put them in an accessible location, and insert the URL for the Help for each window in the OCL_DOC_INDEX table in the Developer's Toolkit.

The Oracle Clinical Help engine determines which topic file to open by comparing the user's current environment to environments listed in table OCL_DOC_INDEX. The environment is the combination of module, task, and block values. You change these calls with the Document Index form. To access this form, you must have access to the Oracle Clinical Developer's Toolkit. Navigate to Admin, then Client Doc Index. The Maintain Client DOC Index window displays. It has these fields:

• Module Name: The code module, or form name. You can find this value in any form by navigating to Action, then Environment.

• Task Name: A case-sensitive string that often resembles the screen name. Many forms have task names that distinguish browse mode from write mode. You can find this value in any form by navigating to Action, then Environment.

• Block Name: A subdivision within the form. Some forms have one block. Others have many. You can find this value in any form by placing your cursor in the block and navigating to Action, then Environment.

• Field Name: You can make calls that are context sensitive to the field level. If you leave this field blank, the system drops through to the block level. You can find this value by invoking Help and reading the value from the field window.

• Show OC Help: This check box controls the More button. If you un-check it, you deactivate Oracle Clinical's packaged help topic for the current environment.

• OC Document Name: This is Oracle Clinical's topic identifier. Our calls contain several parameters for invoking our help system. The Oracle Clinical Doc Name is the second half of a URL. The first half is the value of a Web Server registry variable. The help engine concatenates the two parts, invokes a new browser instance, and passes the URL to the browser.

• Show Client Help: This check box activates the Custom button.

• Client Document Name: This is the value you enter to create a custom call to your help topic. The Client Doc Name is the second half of a URL. The first half is the value of Web Server registry variable OPA_CUSTOM_DOC_DIR.

  Note:

  You must leave the context and topic values the same as in the corresponding OC Document Name value.

• Product: The value can be AERS, RXA, RXC, RDC, or TMS.

Note:

RDC Onsite has a consistent Task Name value of RDC_HTML as well as a Product value of RDC to differentiate it from the defunct PDF version of RDC Onsite, which had a Task Name value of RDC ONSITE.

To modify a call to the online help topic files:

1. Navigate to Admin and select Client Doc Index to open the Maintain Client DOC Index window.

2. Query the module, task, or block name field for the form with the help you want to modify. (This information is available by opening the form and choosing Environment in the Action menu to display the Environment window.)

3. Set the Show Oracle Clinical Help and Show Client Help check boxes as necessary for your system.

4. Enter your path/filename in the Client Document Name field, in the same row as the environment it references.

Note:

• Calls are case sensitive. Windows Explorer may not give an accurate view of the case of a filename, or a directory name.

• Browsers use forward slashes (/) as directory separators. If a call displays the HTML file at the end of the file, the call probably contains a backslash (\).

Copying Online Help Topic Files

If you copy the shipped help files to a separate directory, you can customize the content in those files, yet retain their HTML hyperlinks. You then activate your system by setting your OPA_CUSTOM_DOC_DIR registry string value to point to the duplicate directory.

Placing Custom Help Files

The Oracle Clinical help system provides flexibility to link to files that you create from within the online help. However, if you do create custom help files do not place them under the \html\xhelp directory. This directory may be over-written during product upgrades. Oracle suggests you create another directory under \html, for example, \html\custom_xhelp.

Note:

If you placed custom help files in the \html\xhelp\oc or the \html\xhelp\rdc directory trees in earlier versions of Oracle Clinical/RDC, you must create backups of these directories during the upgrade process.