Help System

A Guide for All Users and Administrators

What is it?

The AHG Help plugin (ahgHelpPlugin) is the built-in online help system for AtoM Heratio. It turns the project's markdown documentation into a searchable, browsable Help Center inside the application, with category navigation, individual help articles, instant client-side search powered by FlexSearch, contextual help, and an AI-assisted help chatbot. It also offers an administrative system map that visualises the installed plugins and categories.

Key features

• Help Center home — a landing page that groups help into categories (Admin & Settings, AI & Automation, Browse & Search, Collection Mgmt, Compliance, Exhibitions, GLAM Sectors, Heritage Accounting, Import/Export, Integration, Labels & Forms, Public Access, Research, Rights, Viewers & Media, plus User Manual, Plugin Reference, Technical, and Reference) and lists recently updated articles.
• Category browsing — view all articles within a category, grouped by subcategory.
• Help articles — individual articles rendered from imported markdown, with a sidebar for navigation.
• Instant search — FlexSearch-powered, in-browser search for fast results as you type, backed by a server search index and a full search results page.
• Contextual help — an off-canvas/context map that surfaces help relevant to the screen you are on.
• Help chatbot — an AI-assisted chat panel that answers questions using the help content.
• System map — an administrator visualisation of the installed plugins and their categories.

How to use it

• Open help: go to /help for the Help Center home.
• Browse a category: /help/category/:category.
• Read an article: /help/article/:slug.
• Search: /help/search, or use the instant search box (which calls /help/api/search and the search index at /help/api/search-index).
• Contextual help: the help widget loads a context map from /help/api/context-map to suggest articles for the current page.
• Ask the chatbot: the chat panel posts questions to /help/api/chat.

Administration / settings

• System map: administrators can open /help/system-map (with JSON data at /help/api/system-map) to see a graph of installed plugins and categories.
• Importing documentation: the help:import CLI task imports markdown documentation files into the help system (creating help articles and sections).
• Rebuilding the index: the help:rebuild-index CLI task rebuilds the article text index and sections from the stored markdown — run it after importing or updating content.
• Storage: help content lives in the help_article and help_section tables.

Tips & FAQ

• Where does the help content come from? From the project's markdown documentation, imported via help:import and indexed via help:rebuild-index.
• Search isn't finding new content — why? Re-run help:rebuild-index after importing or editing articles so the index reflects the latest text.
• Is the chatbot a substitute for reading articles? It is a shortcut for finding answers within the help content; the full articles remain the authoritative reference.
• What is the system map for? It gives administrators a quick visual overview of which plugins are installed and how they are categorised.