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Providing context-sensitive help using Confluence knowledge base

unknown

Will we be able to a add link into our software application so that a user can click through to the relevant page of our Confluence knowledge base for context-sensitive help? Can we do this using just Confluence, or do we require a plug-in?

thank you.

Accepted answers

Shannon S

Hello Caroline,

I was searching for an answer to this myself, and I wanted to let you know about what I found.

I found an old post by Sarah Maddox: Confluence 4.0 Context Sensitive Online Help Mapping.

According to Sarah, in Confluence Server, there is a built-in file called help-paths.properties. This file is located in your WEB-INF/lib folder.

You will need to find confluence-X.XX.X.jar file (according to your version). From here, copy it, extract it, and you will find the help-paths.properties file. For more information on editing JAR files in Confluence, see How to edit files in Confluence JAR files.
Of course, the mapping isn't necessary to perform the context-sensitive help. You can also just use labels and some of the suggestions that are mentioned here: Is there a possibility of creating context-sensitive help from Confluence?
I also discovered the following add-on here: Scroll CHM Exporter
This add-on is not available for Confluence Cloud.

Lastly, the following 2 articles:

Enhance Your User Help Experience with Context-Sensitive Help in Confluence
And Sarah's blog post from 2007 (outdated, but may be useful for you): Using a wiki for online help

I just wanted to pass on any information I had, so I hope this can help you.

Regards,

Shannon

Matt Reiner _K15t_

Hey @[deleted]and @[deleted]

I love all the writing from Sarah Maddox on the subject, she's such an amazing thinker and nice person.

I figured I'd chime in with a few additional suggestions to the great resources @Shannon S already shared.

You could display your Confluence knowledge base space(s) as an online help center using Scroll Viewport and then set up some direct links to your apps.

To make the context sensitive help even more valuable to your users, you could use Scroll Versions to create variants of content for different use cases/variations of your app.

This way, your users would click a help link in your app and be taken to a branded help site with meaningful content for their specific use case.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense. I feel like the explaining part of my brain may be running out of ☕️.

All comments

unknown

Dear Confluence staff,

I have the same question.

Thank you.

Lynn

Shannon S

Hello Caroline,

I was searching for an answer to this myself, and I wanted to let you know about what I found.

I found an old post by Sarah Maddox: Confluence 4.0 Context Sensitive Online Help Mapping.

According to Sarah, in Confluence Server, there is a built-in file called help-paths.properties. This file is located in your WEB-INF/lib folder.

You will need to find confluence-X.XX.X.jar file (according to your version). From here, copy it, extract it, and you will find the help-paths.properties file. For more information on editing JAR files in Confluence, see How to edit files in Confluence JAR files.
Of course, the mapping isn't necessary to perform the context-sensitive help. You can also just use labels and some of the suggestions that are mentioned here: Is there a possibility of creating context-sensitive help from Confluence?
I also discovered the following add-on here: Scroll CHM Exporter
This add-on is not available for Confluence Cloud.

Lastly, the following 2 articles:

Enhance Your User Help Experience with Context-Sensitive Help in Confluence
And Sarah's blog post from 2007 (outdated, but may be useful for you): Using a wiki for online help

I just wanted to pass on any information I had, so I hope this can help you.

Regards,

Shannon

Matt Reiner _K15t_

Hey @[deleted]and @[deleted]

I love all the writing from Sarah Maddox on the subject, she's such an amazing thinker and nice person.

I figured I'd chime in with a few additional suggestions to the great resources @Shannon S already shared.

You could display your Confluence knowledge base space(s) as an online help center using Scroll Viewport and then set up some direct links to your apps.

To make the context sensitive help even more valuable to your users, you could use Scroll Versions to create variants of content for different use cases/variations of your app.

This way, your users would click a help link in your app and be taken to a branded help site with meaningful content for their specific use case.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense. I feel like the explaining part of my brain may be running out of ☕️.

unknown

Thanks Shannon.

unknown

Thanks Matt, I think Scroll Viewport will work for what we are wanting to do.

Matt Reiner _K15t_

That's great! I'd recommend you try out the app after Monday.

Got a pretty big release hitting then. 🙂

Let me know if you need a hand with anything.

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