Context help ids

A message, a hint or a menu item in the app can open a page of this wiki in the Help reader. It does so by a stable id, never by a file name: when a page moves, only one map changes.

#The map

HELP_IDS in src/shared/help/contextHelp.ts maps each id to a page, written as folder/Page-Name (no language, no extension). The reader opens docs/wiki/<page>.md, or <page>.ru.md when the interface is in Russian.

Help ▸ What is new is not a wiki page: it opens @whats-new, the notes of the running version from docs/releases/.

#Linking a new place of the app

1. Add an id to HELP_IDS: lower-case words joined by hyphens, pointing at an existing page.
2. In the renderer, call openHelp('<id>') from src/renderer/services/help.ts, for example from a button in a message or a menu command.
3. Run npx vitest run tests/unit/aboutHelp.test.ts: it fails when an id points at a page that does not exist in both languages.

#Moving or renaming a page

1. Move both language files and fix the links to them (tests/unit/wiki.test.ts lists broken ones).
2. Change the page in HELP_IDS for every id that pointed at it. The app's code does not change.

#How the reader finds pages

npm run build copies docs/wiki into dist/help/wiki and writes two files next to it (scripts/build-assets.js): wiki-index.json (the folders and their pages in the order of the indexes, with titles in both languages) and wiki-search.json (the plain text of every page, for search). Main serves them on help:tree, help:page and help:search (src/main/ipc/aboutIpc.ts). Relative links between pages work in the reader; a link that leaves the wiki (to a file of the repository, such as LICENSE) is not followed there.

#See also

• For developers
• Writing wiki pages
• IPC between window and main