README

domain-helptips : DomainHelptipsGrailsPlugin

Grails plugin to dynamically add helptips to Grails views based on domain properties.
Tips are user-editable.
Inspired by/based on Grails plugin dynamic-help

Copyright jja@sinequanon.net, see LICENSE.txt


REQUIREMENTS

Uses jQuery UI (and thus jQuery). These are included here if your app doesn't have them.


INSTALL

clone this repo and specify the directory path in your BuildConfig.groovy like:
  grails.plugin.location.'domain-helptips'='/path/to/domain-helptips'


VIEW SETUP

In your view add the resource:
  <r:require modules="domain-helptips" />

If you're not using resources, you can use the tag:
  <g:setupHelptips />

Then initialize the helptips for your domain (lowercased):
  <g:helptips domain="myDomain" />

or generically:
  <g:helptips domain="${controllerName}" />


VIEW HELPTIPS

Helptips will be automatically added after any HTML element with an ID
like domain_property, e.g. author_name or book_title.
This is often an INPUT element. If you want to move the helptip
somewhere else, then put a SPAN element with the appropriate ID
where you want the helptip to appear. Note that Grails uses a dot
separator like 'book.title' as the "name" attribute of INPUT elements,
so the helptip ID does not conflict.

The helptip itself is a small blue icon which displays the tip as
a popup on hover or is shown/hidden as a div on click.

There is also a button you can include that toggles display of all
helptip div elements:
  <g:allHelptipsToggler />

HasMany and other relations are available for helptips -- any property
found on the domain class. This also means some properties that are
not normally part of a form can have helptips, such as id, version,
dateCreated, and lastUpdated. That's OK; if you don't have an element
with that ID (like book_id) in your form, or you just don't create
a helptip for it, then a helptip won't appear.


CREATING AND EDITING HELPTIPS

Helptips are managed with a scaffolded controller ('helptip') and the
included domain and views. You may copy and edit them in your application,
for example if you'd like to add CKEditor for the helptip description.
There is also a Bootstrap class in the plugin to create a few helptips
for the helptip domain.


STYLING

The helptips icon is an A element with class 'helptips_icon'.
The inline helptip is a DIV with class 'helptips_div' that contains
multiple div elements based upon class 'ui-dialog'.
The popup helptip uses jQueryUI plugin BeautyTips and is a DIV
with class 'helptips_popup'.