FAQs: Customizing WorkFlows Online Help
WorkFlows Help is comprised of HTML topic files that you can customize for your site. When customizing help topics, you must copy topic files from your web server to a custom directory on your SirsiDynix Symphony server, where you can make your customizations.
The HTML files reside on your Web server in the following path (where version is the product release version of help and language is the language used in the files):
<Web server document root directory>/Helps/<version>/Workflows/<language>
The custom topic files must be copied to a custom directory on your SirsiDynix Symphony server in the following path (where language is the language used in the files and subdirectory is the name of the subdirectory containing files you want to customize):
/Unicorn/Clients/Helps/Workflows/Custom/<language>/<subdirectory>
The files are named similar to the topics they represent and are assigned an .htm extension. For example, the Bill a User Wizard HTML file (in the Circ subdirectory) is named Bill_a_User_Wizard.htm.
Topic files are coded in standard HTML and can be modified using a text editor such as Notepad or WordPad.
Do not add, remove, or rename any Help files, including files in the subdirectories. WorkFlows Help uses Java indexing tools that are specifically coded with the file names found in the subdirectories. If you add, remove, or rename any file, Help may no longer work correctly.
To modify help topic files, follow these steps.
| 1 | If the subdirectory containing files you want to customize does not exist on the SirsiDynix Symphony server, create the subdirectory. |
For example, /Unicorn/Clients/Helps/Workflows/Custom/English/Circ.
| 2 | Copy only the topics you want to customize from the Web server directory to the appropriate subdirectory on your SirsiDynix Symphony server. |
For example, copy <Web server document root directory>/Helps/3.2/Workflows/English/Circ/Bill_a_User_Wizard.htm to /Unicorn/Clients/Helps/Workflows/Custom/English/Circ/Bill_a_User_Wizard.htm.
| 3 | Using a text editor, modify files in this custom directory on the server. |
| 4 | After saving your modifications, run the prepare_web script, then the setup_webcat script on the SirsiDynix Symphony server. For information about running prepare_web and setup_webcat, see the OPAC Administration Wizard topic. |
| 5 | Reopen WorkFlows to verify your customized help topics. |
On UNIX systems, if you FTP the files to a PC to edit them, make sure permissions have not changed after copying files back to the server.
Do not modify files in <Web server document root directory>/Helps/<version>/Workflows/<language>/<subdirectory> on your Web server. The current contents of your subdirectories will be overwritten during a server upgrade. If you modified any files in the subdirectories, you will lose those changes.
Before You Upgrade Your Version of SirsiDynix Symphony
When you upgrade your SirsiDynix Symphony version, new help topic files are copied to your Web server and then replaced with your customized help topic files.
To review the new help topics before replacing them with your customized topics, follow these steps.
| 1 | Before upgrading to the new SirsiDynix Symphony version, rename any customized help topics in any subdirectories of /Unicorn/Clients/Helps/Workflows/Custom/<language>/<subdirectory>. |
| 2 | Perform the SirsiDynix Symphony version upgrade, and be sure to follow the prepare_web and setup_webcat steps. |
| 3 | Using WorkFlows Help or a web browser, compare the new help topics to your corresponding customized help topics. |
| 4 | If you prefer your customized topic files, rename the customized files back to their original names. |
| 5 | Run the prepare_web and setup_webcat scripts again. |
| 6 | Reopen WorkFlows to view your customized help topics. |