Sherpa

A drop-in solution for displaying a user guide in an iOS app, based on a JSON template.

• Compatible with iOS 8.4 and above.
• Provide a plain JSON file for content.
• Deep-link to articles for contextual help.
• User search with query highlighting.
• Built in feedback mechanisms for email and Twitter.
• Customize colors, and optionally provide a UITableViewCell subclass to use.

Sherpa uses a JSON file as the source of its content, which allows you to provide a file in your app bundle, download a file from a server, or both! It handles parsing of the JSON for you, all you need to do is give it the local URL to the document, and it will handle the rest. You don't even need to wrap the view controller in a UINavigationController, as this is done automatically; just present the SherpaViewController directly and you're good to go.

let viewController = SherpaViewController(fileAtURL: fileURL)
self.presentViewController(viewController, animated: true, completion: nil)

To deep link to a specific article for contextual help, you can optionally provide an articleKey that matches the key on the article you would like to link to. Sherpa will present with the selected article open, and allow users to navigate back to the full list of articles to find additional help if they want to.

let viewController = SherpaViewController(fileAtURL: fileURL)
viewController.articleKey = "related-articles"
self.presentViewController(viewController, animated: true, completion: nil)

If you'd like to push Sherpa into an existing UINavigationController stack, this is handled gracefully without any additional configuration required. Simply push the SherpaViewController directly.

let viewController = SherpaViewController(fileAtURL: fileURL)
viewController.articleKey = "related-articles"
self.navigationController?.pushViewController(viewController, animated: true)

More information about setting up the JSON document can be found within the example application's UserGuide.json file. You can read this user guide and see the examples in action by taking the example application itself for a spin. CocoaPods makes this easy with the pod try Sherpa command, which can be run from Terminal if you have CocoaPods installed.

CocoaPods

pod Sherpa

If you have questions, I can be found on Twitter, or you can get in touch via email.

Copyright © 2017 Daniel Farrelly

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.