HELP Procedure

This function outputs page and item level help text as formatted HTML and can be used to customize how help information is displayed in your application.

Syntax

APEX_APPLICATION.HELP (
    p_request        IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
    p_flow_id        IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
    p_flow_step_id   IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
    p_show_item_help IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT 'YES',
    p_show_regions   IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT 'YES',
    p_before_page_html     IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT '<p>',
    p_after_page_html      IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
    p_before_region_html   IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
    p_after_region_html    IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT '</td></tr></table></p>',
    p_before_prompt_html   IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT '<p><b>',
    p_after_prompt_html    IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT '</b></p>:&nbsp;',
    p_before_item_html     IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL,
    p_after_item_html      IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL);

Parameters

Table: HELP Parameters describes the parameters available in the HELP procedure.

HELP Parameters

Parameter	Description
p_request	Not used.
p_flow_id	The application ID that contains the page or item level help you want to output.
p_flow_step_id	The page ID that contains the page or item level help you want to display.
p_show_item_help	Flag to determine if item level help is output. If this parameter is supplied, the value must be either 'YES' or 'NO', if not the default value will be 'YES'.
p_show_regions	Flag to determine if region headers are output (for regions containing page items). If this parameter is supplied, the value must be either 'YES' or 'NO', if not the default value will be 'YES'.
p_before_page_html	Use this parameter to include HTML between the page level help text and item level help text.
p_after_page_html	Use this parameter to include HTML at the bottom of the output, after all other help.
p_before_region_html	Use this parameter to include HTML before every region section. Note this parameter is ignored if `p_show_regions` is set to 'NO'.
p_after_region_html	Use this parameter to include HTML after every region section. Note this parameter is ignored if `p_show_regions` is set to 'NO'.
p_before_prompt_html	Use this parameter to include HTML before every item label for item level help. Note this parameter is ignored if `p_show_item_help` is set to 'NO'.
p_after_prompt_html	Use this parameter to include HTML after every item label for item level help. Note this parameter is ignored if `p_show_item_help` is set to 'NO'.
p_before_item_html	Use this parameter to include HTML before every item help text for item level help. Note this parameter is ignored if `p_show_item_help` is set to 'NO'.
p_after_item_html	Use this parameter to include HTML after every item help text for item level help. Note this parameter is ignored if `p_show_item_help` is set to 'NO'.

Example

The following example shows how to use the APEX_APPLICATION.HELP procedure to customize how help information is displayed.

In this example, the p_flow_step_id parameter is set to :REQUEST, which means that a page ID specified in the REQUEST section of the URL will be used to control which page's help information to display (see note after example for full details on how this can be achieved).

Also, the help display has been customized so that the region sub-header now has a different color (through the p_before_region_html parameter) and also the ':' has been removed that appeared by default after every item prompt (through the p_after_prompt_html parameter).

APEX_APPLICATION.HELP(
    p_flow_id => :APP_ID,
    p_flow_step_id => :REQUEST,
    p_before_region_html => '<p><br/><table bgcolor="#A3BED8" width="100%"><tr><td><b>',
    p_after_prompt_html  => '</b></p>&nbsp;&nbsp;');

In order to implement this type of call in your application, you can do the following:

Create a page that will be your application help page.
Create a region of type 'PL/SQL Dynamic Content' and add the APEX_APPLICATION.HELP call as PL/SQL Source.
Then you can add a 'Navigation Bar' link to this page, ensuring that the REQUEST value set in the link is &APP_PAGE_ID.