Breaking: #97312 - Remove context sensitive help¶
See forge#97312
Description¶
The arguments for removing context sensitive help were:
- The help was not really context sensitive, it only relied on tablename and fieldname, if a field was used for different purposes in different content types, the CSH always showed the same help
- There was outdated information in CSH (e.g. Screenshots form TYPO3 4.x) and nobody is available to update the information
- Some CSH descriptions explained the same content with different words which is confusing (e.g. tt_content - CType > Title: "Type" > CSH Tooltip: "Select the kind of Page Content this element represents. New options will appear when you save the record.")
- Many CSH texts did not provide useful additional information (e.g. tt_content - header > Title: "Header" > CSH Tooltip: "Enter header text for the Content Element.")
- The available online documentation https://docs.typo3.org/ improved a lot and helps better than the CSH in most cases, as it is up to date
- CSH was hidden for most users, as it was only available by clicking on a label (no hint that help was available without hovering the label by mouse, not available for keyboard users)
description
is available for explanations when they are required. Adding relevant information asdescription
will help everyone as it is visible.- The removal was already proposed in 2019 (see
https://decisions.typo3.org/t/drop-context-sensitive-help-in-core/511)
and most arguments against removal can be solved using the
description
or by linking to the official documentation - Removal of CSH also removed a lot of outdated files (and results in smaller footprint of the TYPO3 Core package)
The route help_cshmanual_popup
has been removed.
Help buttons Components\Buttons\Action\HelpButton
only return an
empty string and trigger a deprecation warning.
The CSH descriptions are not loaded any longer for tables.
All labels are adjusted to not contain <abbr>
tags inside any longer.
The method cshItem()
of
TYPO3\CMS\Backend\Utility\BackendUtility
always returns an empty
string and triggers a deprecation warning.
The TYPO3 Manual menu item has been removed and a link to the TYPO3 Online Documentation has been added to the menu.
The backend display related TCA option
$GLOBALS['TCA'][my_table]['interface']['always_description']
is not evaluated anymore.
Impact¶
The context sensitive help is removed completely and only loading help items for SelectCheckboxElements is still supported.
Affected Installations¶
All installations that use CSH for own fields.
Migration¶
Important CSH texts need to be migrated to a TCA description
, to
make the information available for all users.
An example for a TCA description is the protected
column in the
sys_redirect
TCA.
The TCA option ['interface']['always_description']
can be removed from
any TCA definition.