Contextual Help plugin

Welcome to the official home of the WordPress Documentation Team.

This team is responsible for coordinating all documentation initiatives around WordPress, including the handbooks and other general wordsmithing across the WordPress project.

Want to get involved?

Start here to find out more about what we do and how to contribute:

Onboarding to Documentation Team: An overview of what we do and how to collaborate
Documentation Issue Tracker on GitHub: Submit any Documentation Team-related issues on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/

Weekly meetings

Join our discussions of documentation issues here on the blog and on Slack.

The documentation team holds weekly office hours and monthly Contributor Days on each Tuesday of the month in the #docs SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel. It’s also where you can contact the team at any time outside meetings.

I’ve turned the last patch in this ticket into a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and submitted it to .org. When it gets approved, it will be available to download here. If you want to take a look at it early, let me know and I can give you a direct link to the zip. It’s not anything special, it just moves the Help tab up into the admin bar, but I wanted to get it done before our meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. next week.

Update

Plugin is live. Download here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/contextual-help/

#3-8, #admin-help, #dashboard-help, #plugin

dllh 12:45 pm on September 9, 2013
It’s definitely more visible, which is good. Little concerns about UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it.:
- Now that the hep isn’t anchored by the tab and because the Help link doesn’t maintain state, it’s a little strange for the thing to slide down. (I know it’s just a rough cut, though.)
- I worry a little about adding to the admin bar. It’s pretty precious real estate. That said, a pretty good case could probably be made for surfacing Help up there.
- Chris Reynolds 1:47 pm on September 9, 2013
  
  Yeah, I’m not sold on that either. Honestly, if I had my way, I’d handle it more like the Debug Bar pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, where it brings up a totally different page/view that sits on top of everything else. But, this was an easy thing because the code was already there in the TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket and this way we can test whether it’s the *location* of the help button that’s an issue — we can worry about making it pretty or best UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. once we figure out if this is a good direction to go in.
  
  That said, our last round of tests are sort of moot as far as the help tab goes because the stupid recorder thing was sitting on top of the help tab so no one even saw them.
- Chris Reynolds 2:14 pm on September 9, 2013
  
  & re: Admin bar —
  
  I agree that the admin bar is precious real estate. However, if we start believing that the help tab/function/button/whatever it ends up being doesn’t deserve to be in the admin bar — or anywhere else for that matter — we might as well pack it in. I think arguably the Help section is one of the most important parts of a powerful CMS (that and a generally easy-to-use interface), and if we start arguing that it should go in a less prominent place then this project is kind of pointless. To me, help in the admin bar makes a lot more sense than in the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. (at least in the sidebar the way it is in plugins like WP-Help, where it has a top-level menu — maybe in the General Settings menu, but that, again, would be burying it someplace no one will find it.

Want to get involved?

Weekly meetings

Update

Share this: