Using the AI Admin Assistance panel to display help content for your plugin or theme is a straightforward process with a few steps. Here we’ll cover these in enough detail to get you up and running smoothly and quickly!
In our example below, we have created a class called mypluginHelper specifically for the AI Admin Assistance integration and will be using methods in this class to create the integration and help content.
Where do I add the code?
This is mostly a matter of preference. Traditionally, if creating a theme, you might place such functions in your functions.php file. And, if creating a plugin, you’d have more flexibility. For organizational reasons, you may want to create a new file for the new class (perhaps in an includes folder you may already have). The important thing is that, wherever you place the code, you make sure the class/code is loaded at least on all the admin pages on which you would like to display the panel/help content.
Check that the AI Admin Assistance plugin is installed and activated
Since our plugin needs to be activated for you to be able to hook into it, we suggest first adding a function that checks to see if our plugin is indeed activated. For example:
private static function aiaa_is_active() {
if ( defined( 'AIT_AIAA_VERSION' ) ) { return true; }
if ( class_exists( 'AIT_AIAA_Plugin' ) ) { return true; }
// As a fallback, if the filter exists, we treat it as active integration point.
if ( has_filter( 'ait_aiaa_third_party_information' ) ) { return true; }
return false;
}
Since we are including the above example in the class we created for this integration, we created a method in that class.
Integration
Next we’ll add a function/method that runs if the plugin is activated (i.e. if the above method returns true) and that calls the code where we will create the help content.
public static function aiaa_add_filter() {
if ( self::aiaa_is_active() ) {
add_filter( 'ait_aiaa_third_party_information', array( __CLASS__, 'add_help_to_aiaa' ), 20, 2 );
}
}
Here you can see that it refers to the add_help_to_aiaa method in the same class.
Adding the actual help content
Here is where we will add the actual content that will display in the AI Admin Assistance panel on your targeted pages/screens.
public static function add_help_to_aiaa( $items, $context ) {
$items = is_array( $items ) ? $items : array();
$context = is_array( $context ) ? $context : array();
// We only contribute on screens where our own helper would show.
$screen_id = isset( $context['screen_id'] ) ? (string) $context['screen_id'] : '';
$post_type = isset( $context['post_type'] ) ? (string) $context['post_type'] : '';
$taxonomy = isset( $context['taxonomy'] ) ? (string) $context['taxonomy'] : '';
if ( ! self::aiaa_matches_context( $screen_id, $post_type, $taxonomy ) ) { return $items; }
$page_details = self::get_page_details_for_context( $context );
// Build AIAA help_links with grouping:
// - Tutorials: page-specific items
// - General: documentation/support resources
$tutorial_links = array();
if ( ! empty( $page_details['tutorials'] ) && is_array( $page_details['tutorials'] ) ) {
foreach ( $page_details['tutorials'] as $tutorial ) {
if ( empty( $tutorial['url'] ) || empty( $tutorial['title'] ) ) { continue; }
$tutorial_links[] = array(
'title' => (string) $tutorial['title'],
'url' => (string) $tutorial['url'],
);
}
}
$general_links = array();
if ( ! empty( self::$documentation_link ) ) {
$general_links[] = array(
'title' => __( 'Documentation', 'ultimate-faqs' ),
'url' => self::$documentation_link,
);
}
if ( ! empty( self::$tutorials_link ) ) {
$general_links[] = array(
'title' => __( 'YouTube Tutorials', 'ultimate-faqs' ),
'url' => self::$tutorials_link,
);
}
if ( ! empty( self::$support_center_link ) ) {
$general_links[] = array(
'title' => __( 'Support Center', 'ultimate-faqs' ),
'url' => self::$support_center_link,
);
}
$help_links = array();
if ( ! empty( $tutorial_links ) ) { $help_links[ __( 'Tutorials', 'ultimate-faqs' ) ] = $tutorial_links; }
if ( ! empty( $general_links ) ) { $help_links[ __( 'General', 'ultimate-faqs' ) ] = $general_links; }
$items[] = array(
'id' => 'ufaq_help',
'title' => __( 'Ultimate FAQs Help', 'ultimate-faqs' ),
'description' => ! empty( $page_details['description'] ) ? '<p>' . esc_html( $page_details['description'] ) . '</p>' : '',
'help_links' => $help_links,
'source' => array(
'type' => 'plugin',
'name' => 'Ultimate FAQs',
'slug' => 'ultimate-faqs',
),
'target_callback' => array( __CLASS__, 'aiaa_target_callback' ),
'priority' => 20,
'capability' => 'manage_options',
'icon' => 'dashicons-editor-help',
);
return $items;
}
Setting where to show your help content
The above method created the help content to be displayed in the AI Admin Assistance panel. You’ll notice that it references aiaa_matches_context. This is a separate method that sets where to show that content. An example of how this might look is:
private static function aiaa_matches_context( $screen_id, $post_type, $taxonomy ) {
if ( ! empty( $post_type ) && in_array( $post_type, self::$post_types, true ) ) { return true; }
if ( ! empty( $taxonomy ) && in_array( $taxonomy, self::$taxonomies, true ) ) { return true; }
if ( ! empty( $screen_id ) && ! empty( self::$additional_pages ) ) {
foreach ( self::$additional_pages as $slug ) {
if ( empty( $slug ) ) { continue; }
if ( strpos( $screen_id, $slug ) !== false ) { return true; }
}
}
return false;
}
You may have also notice that this method and add_help_to_aiaa both also reference aiaa_target_callback. This last method helps bring everything together. An example of this would be:
public static function aiaa_target_callback( $context, $item ) {
$context = is_array( $context ) ? $context : array();
$screen_id = isset( $context['screen_id'] ) ? (string) $context['screen_id'] : '';
$post_type = isset( $context['post_type'] ) ? (string) $context['post_type'] : '';
$taxonomy = isset( $context['taxonomy'] ) ? (string) $context['taxonomy'] : '';
return self::aiaa_matches_context( $screen_id, $post_type, $taxonomy );
}
Final piece
The final piece in the puzzle is making sure you register the action to make the integration happen. This would look like:
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', array( 'mypluginHelper', 'aiaa_add_filter' ), 20 );
Where mypluginHelper is the name of our class and calls our original aiaa_add_filter method.