Help System

Introduction

CumulusUtils has a help system for the Charts (through the ChartsCompiler) and for the Climate Charts (Graphs menu choice).

For the website viewer there is no difference: the small word info appears left of the hamburger menu in the chart and when clicked there is some Help info available through a popup modal window. If it is not available, the word Info won't appear.

For the owner of the Website is the task to write some information which makes the charts more clear for the viewer.

Operation

Technically there are currently two systems:

1. The charts generated through the ChartsCompiler have the keyword Info in CDL
2. The charts in the menu Graphs assemble the Info text from the file CUhelptexts.txt where the website owner has his help texts.

The CutilsCharts.def for the ChartsCompiler is described on the ChartsCompiler page.

The CUhelptexts.txt file resides in the utils directory an will be created when it does not exist: run CumulusUtils once without an argument. It has the following default content:

HT_DailyRain = " "
HT_MonthlyRain = " "
HT_YearlyRainStats = " "
HT_YearlyMonthlyRainStats = " "
HT_MonthlyTemp = " "
HT_YearlyTempStats = " "
HT_YearlyMonthlyTempStats = " "
HT_WarmerDays = " "
HT_HeatMap = " "
HT_WindRose = " "
HT_WindRun = " "
HT_YearlySolarHRSstats = " "
HT_YearlyMonthlySolarHRSstats = " "
HT_YearlyInsolationStats = " "
HT_YearlyMonthlyInsolationStats = " "
HT_TempSum = " "
HT_GrowingDegreeDays = " "
HT_ThermalSeasons = " "
HT_DailyEVT = " "
HT_MonthlyEVT = " "
HT_ClashOfAverages = " "

The structure is <tag> = " <free text> " ; The spaces are obligatory, the tag names are fixed and must not be changed by the user.

The spaces are obligatory for the parser to recognize the structure of the file and a space between the double quote and the free text between the quotes is also obligatory. The user can write any HTML formatted text between the quotes, in principle of any length (though some restraint is advisable).

All climate graphs have their own meaningful entry - e.g. HT_DailyRain means Help Text for the Daily Rain chart - and can have their own text. If no text is specified (only white space between the double quotes) the Info word will not appear in the chart.

Output

The helptexts are assembled in the different charts files (e.g. graphsrain.txt and cumuluscharts.txt).

Inifile parameters

There are no inifile parameters related to this helptext information system

Other remarks

The Info keyword in the ChartsCompiler will eventually be unified with the CUhelptexts.txt file system when an unambiguous merge can be constructed.

When errors have been made or the default tag names have been changed and the system no longer works, just remove the CUhelptexts.txt file and rerun CumulusUtils without argument.