evennia.help.filehelp

The filehelp-system allows for defining help files outside of the game. These will be treated as non-command help entries and displayed in the same way as help entries created using the sethelp default command. After changing an entry on-disk you need to reload the server to have the change show in-game.

An filehelp file is a regular python module with dicts representing each help entry. If a list HELP_ENTRY_DICTS is found in the module, this should be a list of dicts. Otherwise all top-level dicts in the module will be assumed to be a help-entry dict.

Each help-entry dict is on the form

{'key': <str>,
 'category': <str>,   # optional, otherwise settings.DEFAULT_HELP_CATEGORY
 'aliases': <list>,   # optional
 'text': <str>}

where the category is optional and the text** should be formatted on the same form as other help entry-texts and contain **# subtopics** as normal.

New help-entry modules are added to the system by providing the python-path to the module to settings.FILE_HELP_ENTRY_MODULES. Note that if same-key entries are added, entries in latter modules will override that of earlier ones. Use settings.DEFAULT_HELP_CATEGORY** to customize what category is used if not set explicitly.

An example of the contents of a module:

help_entry1 = {
    "key": "The Gods",   # case-insensitive, also partial-matching ('gods') works
    "aliases": ['pantheon', 'religion'],
    "category": "Lore",
    "text": '''
        The gods formed the world ...

        # Subtopics

        ## Pantheon

        ...

        ### God of love

        ...

        ### God of war

        ...

    '''
}


HELP_ENTRY_DICTS = [
    help_entry1,
    ...
]

---

class evennia.help.filehelp.FileHelpEntry(key: str, aliases: list, help_category: str, entrytext: str)

Bases: object

Represents a help entry read from file. This mimics the api of the database-bound HelpEntry so that they can be used interchangeably in the help command.

key: str

aliases: list

help_category: str

entrytext: str

property search_index_entry

Property for easily retaining a search index entry for this object.

__init__(key: str, aliases: list, help_category: str, entrytext: str) → None

Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

class evennia.help.filehelp.FileHelpStorageHandler(help_file_modules=['world.help_entries'])

Bases: object

This reads and stores help entries for quick access. By default it reads modules from settings.FILE_HELP_ENTRY_MODULES.

Note that this is not meant to any searching/lookup - that is all handled by the help command.

__init__(help_file_modules=['world.help_entries'])

Initialize the storage.

load()

Load/reload file-based help-entries from file.

all(return_dict=False)

Get all help entries.

Parameters

return_dict (bool) – Return a dict **{key: FileHelpEntry,…}**. Otherwise, return a list of **FileHelpEntry.

Returns

dict or list – Depending on the setting of **return_dict**.