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Deploying the Oxygen Feedback Comments Component for DocBook

You can add a comments component in your WebHelp Classic output to provide a simple and efficient way for your community to interact and offer feedback. The comments component is contributed by Oxygen Feedback, a modern comment management system that can be integrated with your WebHelp Classic output to provide a comments area at the bottom of each WebHelp page where readers can add new comments or reply to existing ones.

Oxygen Feedback includes a modern, user-friendly administration interface where you can moderate comments, manage users, view statistics, and configure settings. It is very easy to integrate and there are no requirements for installing additional software.

An add-on is also available that contributes a Feedback Comments Manager view in Oxygen XML Editor/Author where the documentation team can see all the comments added in your WebHelp output. This means they can react to user feedback by making corrections and updating the source content without leaving the application.

Adding the Feedback System to WebHelp Classic Documentation

Prerequisite

To install and manage Oxygen Feedback, you must obtain a license for the product. This requires that you choose a subscription plan during the installation procedure. To see the subscription plans prior to installing the product, go to: https://www.oxygenxml.com/oxygen_feedback/buy_feedback.html.

Installation Procedure
  1. Log in to your Feedback account from the administration login page (https://feedback.oxygenxml.com/login). You can click Log in with Google or Log in with Facebook to create an account using your Google or Facebook credentials, or click the Sign Up tab to create an account using your name and email address.
  2. Click the Add site button to create a site configuration. If you have not already selected a subscription plan, you will be directed to a page where you can choose from several options.
  3. In the Settings page, enter a Name and Description for the site configuration. There are some optional settings that can be adjusted according to your needs. For more details, see the Site Settings topic. Click Continue.
  4. In the Initial version page, enter the Base URL for your website (you can add additional URLs by clicking the Add button). You can also specify an Initial version if you want it to be something other than 1.0. If you do not plan to have multiple versions, leave the version as 1.0. For more details, see the Initial Version topic. Click Continue.
  5. In the Installation page, choose a site generation option:
    1. If you will generate the documentation using a transformation scenario in Oxygen XML Editor/Author, select the Oxygen XML Editor option and continue with these steps:
      1. Copy the generated HTML fragment and click Finish.
      2. Create an XML file (for example, feedback-install.xml) with the generated installation fragment.
      3. In Oxygen XML Editor/Author, open the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog box.
      4. Select and duplicate the DocBook WebHelp Classic (Deprecated) scenario.
      5. Go to the Parameters tab.
      6. Set the webhelp.footer.file parameter to reference the path of the fragment file created earlier.
    2. If you will generate the documentation using a command-line script, select the Oxygen XML WebHelp option and continue with these steps:
      1. Copy the generated HTML fragment and click Finish.
      2. Create an XML file (for example, feedback-install.xml) with the generated installation fragment.
      3. Use the webhelp.footer.file parameter in your command-line script to specify the path to the file you created. For example:
        docbook.bat -Dwebhelp.footer.file=c:\path\to\feedback-install.xml
  6. [Optional] If you want the Oxygen Feedback comments component to fill the entire page width, contribute a custom CSS file (use the html.stylesheet parameter to reference it) that contains the following style rule:
    div.footer {
      float: none;
    }

For more details about Oxygen Feedback, how to configure settings, moderate comments, view statistics, and much more, see the Oxygen Feedback user guide.