ss_ref

by Suicide Shifter
Create custom reference pages for use with Dream Maker's F1 functionality.
ID:106976
 
Keywords: f1, help, reference
Edit: Now supports multiple page uploads per session.

I was playing around late last night and I learned how to create reference pages within dream maker's F1 functionality from Forum account, so I decided to build off it.

I thought this was extremely useful, especially with big games where you (or at least I) tend to forget how the functionality of a proc/variable works or what instances it is called in. Even more so when you take long breaks from projects (6+ months) and come back only to be very confused.

So I decided to make a dynamic form that simply took in your information, and did the work for you. All you have to do is know where to put the new html file that is made for you, and the tree paths for optimal organization.




Sure its nothing fancy, but I thought i'd share it with you. Anyways, here is the demo where you simply fill out a form and hit submit.

Take the html file it gives you and save it over c:/program files/byond/help/ref/info.html
Currently supports BYOND 479.1086 Help contents. Once you replace this file, simply reboot your DM and you will have access to your own reference pages.

A quick note on path field: begin with a backslash / and follow the same paths within the F1 Contents file



Eh theres a lot I can do to make this extremely user friendly, but I feel I'm getting too side tracked. Must continue spies....
Nice! I'll have to check this out later.

Out of curiosity, does it have support for loading the HTML file so you can edit existing pages? I've found the maintenance to be more annoying than the creation.

I'm not holding my breath while I wait for built-in support for custom reference pages, maybe we can work on improving this tool.
Yes I plan to improve this tool later on, this is just something I whipped up for the time being. Lets see, it stores all your custom pages you have created in its own body.html, and when you add a page it simply adds onto body.html

Later I was thinking about introducing savefiles and datums for each custom page for more organization/maintenance and even different html styles (if BYOND's F1 can support them, haven't tried it) and then even a sexy layout to take advantage of skins ;)

Edit: @Forum I was reading your feature request, the whole adding a library should edit the help file, and came up with this code:
var/updated_help = file('ref/body.html')
var/ff = file("c:/program files/byond/help/ref/info.html")
world/New()
..()
fdel("c:/program files/byond/help/ref/info.html")
ff<<file2text(updated_help)

It seems to work when I compile/run my source, yet I tried uploading it onto BYOND and running it.. didn't work. Just something to play with, I'll play with it more later on.
I think the problem I ran into is that DM loads info.html when it starts up and the ideal implementation needs to modify it while dream maker is running.