WebSphere Message Brokers
File: as04497_
Writer: Lorraine Waitt

Task topic

This build: July 31, 2007 21:37:03

Adding help to the node

Before you start:

You must complete the following tasks:
  1. Creating a user-defined node project
  2. Creating the user-defined node plug-in files
  3. Defining the node properties
Add help information for the node that you have created to explain why and when to use the node, and how it must be configured:

All three forms of help are optional; you can create any one or more of the three resources described below.

  1. Create a help.html file within the project to contain the online help that explains what the node does and how you can use it. If you have several files, create a separate doc subdirectory in the plug-in project, and store the online help files in that directory.

    You can make the node's online help appear integrated with the product-supplied information center, under the leaf node called "User-defined nodes", which you can find in Reference > Message flows. To make the online help for your node appear at that point:

    1. Modify the plugin.xml file to include the following extension point to the information center:
      <extension point="org.eclipse.help.toc">
      <toc file="toc.xml"/>
      </extension>
    2. Create a toc.xml file in your user-defined node project, and modify the link_to attribute to link to the "UDNodes" anchor that is already defined in the information center table of contents:
      <toc label="My Plugin Node" topic="my_node.htm"
      	link_to="../com.ibm.etools.mft.doc/toc.xml#UDNodes">
      <topic label="Mytopic 1" href="topic1.htm>
      </toc>
      Your help topic is now displayed in the table of contents under Reference > Message flows > User-defined nodes.

      The sample nodes that are provided with the product demonstrate this option.

      For further explanation of extension points and how to use them, see the PDE Guide.

  2. Add context sensitive (F1) help to the node. Context sensitive help is displayed when you click on a node in the Broker Application Development perspective and press F1.

    When a node is created, a HelpContexts.xml file is created. This file assigns a context id based on the name of the node. Modify the HelpContexts.xml file for your node by changing the text in the description field. The name of the HelpContexts.xml file must be unique within the project, but can contain multiple context entries; for example, if you have several nodes within a single project, each node can have its context-sensitive help in the file.

    Context-sensitive help is limited in length. A useful way of providing more help to the user is to link from the F1 help to an HTML file that contains further information; for example, to the node's online help, described above. Code the link as shown below:
    <topic href"../plug-in directory/html file" label="Link title">
  3. Add hover help (known as ToolTip help on Windows) to the node. When you create a user-defined node, a palette.properties file is created. Modify this file to contain your node's hover help, which shows the node name when the palette is not wide enough to display it all.

If you do not want to add any of the optional features, you can test your node at this point. Launch another instance of the workbench; see Enabling PDE runtime capabilities, and select Run > Run as > Runtime Workbench for further guidance. See the PDE Guide for more information about testing using the Runtime Workbench.

Related concepts
User-defined input nodes
User-defined message processing nodes
User-defined output nodes
Related tasks
Developing user-defined extensions
Implementing the provided samples
Testing a user-defined node
Packaging a user-defined node workbench project
Related reference
User-defined extensions
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Copyright IBM Corporation 1999, 2007Copyright IBM Corporation 1999, 2007. All Rights Reserved.
This build: July 31, 2007 21:37:03

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