Customizing the Help Menu

Code:

Category "Category Name" Alignment
{
	Item "Item Name" Alignment
	{
		Text <&
			...
		&>
	}
}

3.1) Categories

The Categories on the far left can contain multiple Items underneath them. They can also be flagged as Hero, Villain, or Praetorian Only. If you are a Hero, the Villain categories will not show until you switch sides. An example of alignment based categories in the InGame Help menu is "Masterminds". That category will only show in the help menu if you are a Villain.

Let's look at the syntax for categories.

Code:

Category <NAME> <ALIGNEMENT> <COMMENT - Optional>
{
	...
}

NAME - Whatever text you want to have displayed. This field is limited in length. The extra text will bleed over into the Item window if it exceeds the space provided.
ALIGNMENT - can be All, HeroOnly, VillianOnly, or PraetorianOnly. All shows up for everyone regardless of alignment.
COMMENT - Any comments you want to put in the file. Anything after the //'s will be ignored when displaying in game
{ and } - Used to place all the items under one category.

Examples:

Code:

Category "Category For Everyone" All //Everyone can see this
{
	...
}

The following show up only if you are on the correct alignment:

Code:

Category "Hero Only Category" HeroOnly //Heroes Only can see this
{
	...
}
Category "Villain Only Category" VillianOnly //Villains Only can see this
{
	...
}
Category "Praetorian Only Category" PraetorianOnly //Praetorians Only can see this
{
	...
}

3.2) Items

Under each category, you can have multiple Items. There does not appear to be a limit to the number of items, just the size of each one. Each Item can only be about 21,000 characters long. This includes whitespace (ie. spaces, carriage returns, and newlines). Items follow a very similar syntax to categories, and can also be set for alignment.

The only difference in syntax from Categories to Items is the actual word 'Item' or 'Category'

Let's look at the syntax for items.

Code:

Item <NAME> <ALIGNEMENT> <COMMENT - Optional>
{
	...
}

NAME - Whatever text you want to have displayed. This field is limited in length. The extra text will bleed over into the Item window if it exceeds the space provided.
ALIGNMENT - can be All, HeroOnly, VillianOnly, or PraetorianOnly. All shows up for everyone regardless of alignment.
COMMENT - (optional) Any comments you want to put in the file. Anything after the //'s will be ignored when displaying in game
{ and } - Used to place all the items under one category.





3.3) ItemText

The markup for an Item is similar to the following

Text <&
Stuff for everyone
&>

Notice the <& and the &>. They are used to surround the text of the item. They must be present for it to display correctly. The word Text is used in two different ways. If it is an Item for all alignments, then "Text" means for everyone. If you are specifying alignments then "Text" means Heroes Only. Other options are V_Text for villains and P_Text for Praetorians. Look at this example:

Code:

Item "Transportation" All //the names of how to get around
{
		Text <&
			Use the tram lines. Used to be called Green and Yellow Line.
		&>
		V_Text <&
			Use the Rogue Island Ferries
		&>
		P_Text <&
			Use the CTA subway 
		&>
}

When this item is viewed, you will only see 1 of those options, depending on your alignment. If you do not care to specify alignment, simply use "Text".

As far as the content goes, you can do all sorts of wonderful things. Item text is a simplified HTML document that the client renders for you. It uses only the basic HTML commands. The commands that I know of so far are:

Here is some example syntax

Simple Text with color codes and centering:

Code:

Sample Text1  -- Prints out "Sample Text1" in white letters
	<color HotPink>Sample Text2</color> -- Prints out "Sample Text2" in a Hot Pink color
	<color #00FF00>Sample Text3</color> -- Prints out "Sample Text3" in a Lime Green Color
	<span align=center>Sample Text4</span> -- Prints Sample Text4 centered in the window

Color codes can be either HTML Color names or the Hex equivalent of the color. Hex and color names can be found online by searching for HTML Color codes

Links:
Links in the help file function the same way as if you were to type them into chat. Any slash command can be used here. You must also provide the colors to be used to show the link, as well as when the pointer is hovered over it. Omitting the colors results in invisible links.
The format is

Code:

<linkhover #00FF00><link #00FF00><a href='cmd:<SLASH_COMMAND>'><LINKTEXT></a></link></linkhover>

SLASH_COMMAND - Any valid /slash command. You can string multiple ones with $$
LINKTEXT - the text that is displayed.

Some Examples are:

Code:

<linkhover #7CFC00><link #32CD32><a href="cmd:t $self, Hiya. I'm a Link">Sample Link1</a></link></linkhover><br>
	<linkhover #00FF00><link #00FF00><a href='cmd:chansend "A Channel Name with Spaces" What I want to say...'>Sample Link2</a></link></linkhover><br>
	<linkhover #00FF00><link #00FF00><a href='cmd:Stuck'>Click here to UnStuck</a></link></linkhover><br>

Tables:
Table borders do not seem to work (could just be my resolution/settings), but you can still use them for organizing things into columns. You can also Right,Left,Center align them as well.

Examples are:

Code:

<table>
		<tr>
			<td align=left>	Cell1</td>
			<td align=center>	Cell2</td>
			<td align=right>	Cell3</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>	Cell4</td>
			<td><color #00FF00>Cell5</color></td>
			<td><linkhover #00FF00><link #00FF00><a href='cmd:t $self, This is Cell 6'>Cell6</a></link></linkhover></td>
		</tr>
	</table>

Images:
Help also supports images. The image names must be in-game image names. You can also tell it to shrink or expand the height and width through standard HTML. If an image is to big to fit the window, it will simply not show. If an image that is linked can not be found, a small white square will be used instead. You do not need to specify the path to the image, just the filename.
Examples are:

Code:

<img width=256 height=256 src="map_city_01_01.tga">

4) Examples

The code used to produce the image in the overview section is here:







5) Notes
If you make changes to help.txt, you must exit the game completely before seeing the changes take effect.

The Help Menu will be the same for all of your characters on all servers.

Comments can be added by using a double forward slash (ie //). Any text following the slashes will be ignored by the client.

Each Item has a max of 21,000 characters. Anything greater and the help menu will display only a few letters in the Item field.

The term "VillianOnly" is correct as the original file used the same spelling





6. The default help file can be found here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?6mrehyg6xvskoc8






In closing, you can get pretty elaborate with this. I am currently upgrading my help file, and it is already upwards of 5 megs, and I sill have a lot more content to add to it. Hopefully the guide was written well enough for people to understand, as this was first I have ever written. Any comments/questions please reply. I will answer as quickly as possible.