---
title: "DITA: Webhelp with Feedback"
date: 2014-12-27
description: "DITA: Webhelp with Feedback  Because documentation on this feature is so scant in Oxygen, I"
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/webhelp_with_feedback/
---
# DITA: Webhelp with Feedback
> You can enable commenting below your webhelp topics by selecting the Webhelp with Feedback skin.

Because documentation on this feature is so scant in Oxygen, I'm elaborating with a bit of
 detail here.

## Setting Up the Feedback System

To set up this commenting system, first create a mysql database and add a user to the database
 with all privileges. This process is similar for a lot of different sites (e.g., WordPress,
 Drupal, Joomla), so don't assume this is anything special or difficult. Exactly how you
 create a mysql database and user depends a bit on your web host. 

The instructions in Oxygen focus on using Xampp to set up this database, and they include a
 specific mysql statement (`INSERT INTO `mysql`.`user` ...`) to pass in
 phpmyadmin. You can ignore Oxygen's instructions, as they're poorly written and somewhat
 misleading. Xampp is for local environments (i.e., a web server emulated on your local
 computer, not on an actual server on the web). You would only use Xampp for testing
 purposes, not for actual deployment. The long mysql statement in Oxygen's help is
 unnecessary if you simply grant the user all privileges to the database (a common
 configuration). 

If you're like most tech writers, you don't have direct access to the servers where you
 deploy your help content. (That's actually good, because then you don't have to maintain
 them.) Request from your server admin the following:

- A server with Apache, MySQL, PHP >=5.16, and PHP MySQL Support. (This is a standard
 server deployment referred to as a LAMP stack, for linux, apache, mysql, and php.)

- Create a new MySQL database and add a user to it with all privileges. Ask for the
 database name, username, and password.