VSDM :: Customizing the help page

  • Article

VSDM offers the administrator the option to customize the appearance of the help page. This is very useful to put important information about troubleshooting, contacts and other relevant information for the daily job, without poluting the main page. It is actually very simple to add help topics to VSDM. This feature is not provided by the Configuration Wizard though. You have to edit the vsdm_config.xml directly (with Notepad or any other text or XML editor).

How does it work?

The configuration file contains a section called <HelpTopics> that contains the information that will be presented to users when they visit the help page. For every <HelpTopic> you add to that section, a new item will show up for the users. Simple like that. Let's take a look at an example of a help topic:

<HelpTopic target="_blank">
<Title>Sample Help Topic: Microsoft Web Site</Title>
<URL>https://www.microsoft.com</URL>
</HelpTopic>

HelpTopic Fields

  • Title (mandatory, node): Text that will be displayed to the user
  • URL (optional, node): Makes text in <Title> will be presented as a clickable hyperlink, and specifies where the browser should be pointed when clicked.
  • target (optional, attribute): Specifies the target window to display the help topic. I suggest you leave "_blank". This will make your browser open the topic in a new window.