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NWE Help: Make Help Pages: Old File Format
The standard format for a regular help file is composed of two parts. Help files for directories are slightly different and are described in another document.
- Six lines of header information
- HTML text (the main body of the help document)
We'll work an example that ties into MOO digging. The six lines of header information looks like this:
| purpose | example |
|---|---|
| relative path | MOO/Digging/Autobuilder |
| headline and title | The Autobuilder |
| META keywords | @autobuilder @ab |
| META description | Making objects and rooms with @autobuilder |
| previous file | moo/digging/generics.html::Generics |
| next file | moo/digging/where_to_dig.html::Where to dig |
The previous and next lines are optional. They are delimited like this: pathname::link text. You can see that these data, if they exist, are turned into links at the bottom of a page. Currently the pathnames are absolute; perhaps they should not be.
Whenever a help text file is edited, run the command
/home/htdocs/writing/help/make/make-help-file filestem
where filestem is the name of the help file (with or without the .text extension). That script is self-documenting; please read its internal help for details.