Metadata Block - Add help text block

[youssefOuahalou]

I think it will be more useful for the help block to be more flexible to add.
As in the example of being able to add it to the keyword block for example

[BPeuch]

Yes indeed. We find this small line of explanation above the Description > Text field very useful. It would be very handy to be able to add a line like this above all fields to give users further guidelines on how to format their input, direct them to external resources, etc.

We know there are already watermarks and information bubbles (the latter were not available in earlier versions; they look really great!). But we fear users might overlook these. A customizable text area like this would greatly help.

[TaniaSchlatter]

Thanks for the feedback and opening the issue, @BPeuch and @youssefOuahalou. It sounds like you would like for your installation to be able to add explanatory text above all fields?

[BPeuch]

Yes indeed, @TaniaSchlatter. Thanks for reaching out.

We feel like this could help make Dataverse more customizable and adjustable to the various users' needs. Some of our users told us that the meaning of certain fields' names were unclear to them, and though the information bubbles are a great addition to the UI, we fear some users might overlook them and just neglect certain fields if they're not mandatory.

[mheppler]

This feature was also requested in issue Dataset Metadata: Add Help Text for Geographic Bounding Box Fields #950.

[pdurbin]

@youssefOuahalou @BPeuch a feature of 5.12 is this (from the release notes in PR #8996):

"Collection managers can create templates that include custom instructions on how to fill out specific metadata fields."

I'm not sure which PR this was. @qqmyers coded it up, I believe, and would probably know.

I'm curious if this would meet your needs.

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Update: the addition of custom instructions in templates is in this PR (docs added in 1d76db0):

• GDCC/HDC 3B-Bi-directional LDN messaging, Template Instructions #8775

[BPeuch]

@pdurbin That sounds great! We're eager to test this new feature. Thanks a lot for the feedback and the new developments, @qqmyers & @pdurbin :)

[pdurbin]

@BPeuch sure, I'll try to remember to let you know when https://demo.dataverse.org has been updated to 5.12.

[pdurbin]

@BPeuch @youssefOuahalou https://demo.dataverse.org is all the way up to 6.0 now! Please give it a try and let us know if it doesn't work. Thanks! Closing.