Creating a Joomla! 1.5 help screens SQL dump

These are some brief notes about the process of creating a help screens SQL dump file that can be used to set up a local help server which can serve help screens for Joomla! 1.5 instances. It is important to note that the help server must be running on Joomla! 1.0 at this time.

Note: These notes were written to document the process required to create a dump file from help.joomla.org. You will need to adapt the process to create a dump file from a different source.

1. Log into the help server.
2. Determine the section ID for the 1.5 help screens. (On help.joomla.org this is 42).
3. Start up phpMyAdmin or a similar MySQL tool.
4. For each of the SQL commands listed below:
   • Click SQL.
   • Enter the SQL command in the text box.
   • Click Export at the bottom of the screen (not the one at the top).
   • Deselect Structure.
   • Click Go.
   • Remove unwanted comments from the output.
   • Copy/paste into the appropriate file.
5. Use the control panel or an SSH session and create a ZIP archive of the <joomla-root>/images/stories/help_screens_1.5 directory.
6. Use a text editor to change mos_ to #_ in all the SQL files.
7. Package the five SQL dump files, with the images ZIP file and a readme.txt file into a ZIP archive.
8. Test.

SELECT * from mos_categories where section='42';
SELECT * from mos_content where sectionid='42' and state='1';
SELECT * from mos_menu where menutype regexp '1.5' and name regexp 'Help Screens';
SELECT * from mos_modules where name='fakemenu';
SELECT * from mos_sections where id='42';

Note: On help.joomla.org the 1.5 help screens menu is part of mainmenu so there is no simple SQL command to export just the help screens menu module. Instead, the "fakemenu" menu is exported. Install it on a Joomla! 1.0 instance, change the fields you need to change, then re-export it, so you get the right SQL command. Alternatively, just use the one already set up as it's really unlikely to change.