Search Form Help mod

Search Form Help Mod
Summary	Provides a Help button on the 'Search People' and 'Search Families' pages, that links to a new 'Search Help' file
Validation	The mod is XHTML compliant.
Mod Updated	{{{mod_last_update}}}
Download link	Media:search_form_help_V8.1.0.zip
Download stats	{{{download_stats}}}
Author(s)	Graham Chamberlain Config file by Graham Chamberlain
Homepage	Search Form Help mod (This page)
Mod Support	My Mod Support
Contact Developer	Use Contact form on developer's website
Latest Mod	V8.1.0
Min TNG V	8.0.0 using integrated Mod Manager TNG 7.1.0 requires manual installation of Mod Manager
Max TNG V	8.1.3
Files modified	searchform.php, famsearchform.php
Related Mods	None
Notes	None

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Purpose of Mod

Adds a 'Help' button to the 'Search People' and 'Search Families' pages.Clicking on the button displays a pop-up Help window with information relevant to search functionality.

Mod Developer

The Mod was developed by Graham Chamberlain with help from William (Rick) Bisbee.

Mod Manager config file provided by Graham Chamberlain.

Automated Installation

1. Download the appropriate file for your TNG version from the download links in the mod summary area in the upper right.
2. Extract the downloaded zip file to your 'mods folder.
3. Follow the normal automated installation for Mod Manager, as shown in the example Mod Manager - Installing Config Files to install the appropriate source_title_display.cfg file.

The Help file 'search.help.php' is installed by default to the languages/English folder.

Manual Installation

The Help file 'search.help.php' is provided only in English and will be copied to the languages/English folder. If you want to create a Help file in another language by modifying the default version, you will need to install the new file in the appropriate language folder where it will henceforth be automatically recognised when you are using its associated language.

On the developer's (template8) website there is a template5-style Search Form on the home page which also has a 'Help' button added. The following code for this would be suitable for use on the home page of sites using Templates 1, 2, 3 and 'Plain'. It should be added after the code for the 'Search' button.

   <?php
   // the following says if the search.help.php file does not exist in the user's chosen language
   // default to the one in the English folder
   $helplink = file_exists("{$cms['tngpath']}$mylanguage/search.help.php")
   ?
   "onclick=\"return openHelp('{$cms['tngpath']}$mylanguage/search.help.php');\""
   :
   "onclick=\"return openHelp('{$cms['tngpath']}languages/English/search.help.php');\""
   ?>
   <?php
   // display the Help button
   echo "<input type=\"button\" id=\"helpbtn\" class=\"small\" value=\"{$text['help']}\" $helplink />";
   ?>

It may be necessary to change 'class="small"' to match the class for the existing 'Search' button.

Pre-install Edits

If you would like to monitor use of the Help file, add the following code to search.help.php immediately before the php closing tag, at the top of the file.

   $logfile = "search_help.log";
   $referer = empty( $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] ) ? "" : " on {$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']} ";
   $newline = "Search Help accessed " . date("d M y H:i:s") . "$referer from {$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']}
   ";
   file_put_contents( "search_help.log", $newline, FILE_APPEND | LOCK_EX );

NOTE that the closing quote and semi-colon for $newline should be on a separate line to ensure that the details for each access of the Help file is stored on a separate line on the log file.

The log file (search_help.log) will be created and maintained in the same folder as the Help file.

Visualization

To see the mod in action, go to

• Graham's web site

TNG User sites using this mod

Please add TNG sites that you have found that utilize this modification

URL	User	Note	Mod-Version/TNG-Version	User-language
Chamberlain & Eidenbenz Genealogy	Graham Chamberlain	Mod developer	V8.1.0/8.1.3	EN, FR, DE, SP
...	...	...	...	...