Documentation for a custom widget

KenBuja · ‎02-03-2026

I'm creating a help document for the widget that I'm building. I've gotten everything written out in a Word doc that approximates the layout of the standard widget configuration page. However, exporting a Word doc makes for a very messy html file.

Is there a template available to match the widget configuration page? If not, what have you done for your custom widget's help?

KenBuja · ‎03-25-2026

I ended up going another route. I created a separate experience for my documentation and using this for my index.html. This way, I can update the help documentation without needing to recompile the experience and deploying it.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
    <title>Spatial Prioritization help</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="./style.css">
    <link rel="icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
  </head>
  <body>
    <main>
        <!-- <h1>Spatial Prioritization help</h1>   -->
    </main>
    <script>
      window.location.replace("https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/d577837e4c5f48e8bda663bbd9da03c1/page/Settings");
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

View solution in original post

JordanCarmona · ‎02-04-2026

My recommendation is to write your help doc in markdown and then use an opens source library like Pandoc to convert it to HTML: pandoc.org

It's kind of amazing, and I think writing in markup is a lot easier than trying to wrangle a word document. And on the upside, it's more version-control friendly.

SunshineLuke90 · ‎03-08-2026

I'll second Jordan's suggestion. I haven't tried to replicate the help page that esri provides, but just having some text that explains how to use and configure your widget is what's most important.

I've used a html and css document within my help docs in the past, and it's been fine. My markdown printing widget has a help doc section, feel free to use it as an example. https://github.com/SunshineLuke90/widgets/tree/master/MDPrint

KenBuja · ‎03-25-2026

I ended up going another route. I created a separate experience for my documentation and using this for my index.html. This way, I can update the help documentation without needing to recompile the experience and deploying it.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
    <title>Spatial Prioritization help</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="./style.css">
    <link rel="icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
  </head>
  <body>
    <main>
        <!-- <h1>Spatial Prioritization help</h1>   -->
    </main>
    <script>
      window.location.replace("https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/d577837e4c5f48e8bda663bbd9da03c1/page/Settings");
    </script>
  </body>
</html>