Mineclonia/mods/HELP/doc/doc_identifier/API.md

Minimal API for doc_identifier

Introduction

The tool can identify blocks and players natively, and also handles falling nodes (__builtin:falling_node) and dropped items (__builtin:item) on its own.

However, the identifier can't “identify” (=open the appropriate entry) custom objects because the mod doesn't know which help entry to open (if there is any). One example would be the boat object (boats:boat) from the boats mod in Minetest Game. If the player tries to use the tool on an unknown object, an error message is shown.

Because of this, this mod provides a minimal API for mods to assign a help entry to an object type: doc_identifier.register_object.

doc.sub.identifier.register_object(object_name, category_id, entry_id)

Registers the object/entity with the internal name object_name to the entry entry_id in the category category_id. It is in the modder's responsibility to make sure that both the category and entry already exist (use doc.entry_exists or depend (optionally or not) on the respective mods) at the time of the function call, otherwise, stability can not be guaranteed.

Returns nil.

Example

From doc_minetest_game:

if minetest.get_modpath("doc_identifier") ~= nil then
    doc.sub.identifier.register_object("boats:boat", "craftitems", "boats:boat")
end

This enables the tool to be used on the boat object itself. The conditional is an idiom to check for the existence of this mod.

Note on dependencies

If you just need doc.sub.identifier.register_object using only an optional dependency for your mod is probably enough.