error: Guide name could not be blank

Hello Charley

Thanks for writing to us.
We have checked your scenario on our testing server by creating two posts with same name but different content. Search with post name and content is working properly at our end. Let us know if you have any different scenario.

Can you please provide us the URL of page where the Documentor is embedded, so that we will also take look into the scenario.

Waiting for your response.
Thank you for your patience.

Best Regards,
Sagar.

Hi Sagar,

I’ve encountered the same problem. Similar circumstances. A large document with varying section names. I was building the document by Section with no content within the sections (to be added later). Would appreciate your assistance to resolve.

I have the same problem as well. When the number of records hits 110, I am unable to save any changes on the Edit Guide, Sections tab, and I received the same error. I’ve made a point to keep all section names and slugs unique.

One thing I noticed is that the slugs of the sections in the Edit Guide, Section tab, may mis-match the WordPress slug of the section, and, if you update the Section slug it does not update the WordPress slug. Even still, with all of them matching and unique, I can not arrange the sections.

What I ended up doing is using the Adminer plugin to edit the sections_order field in the ks_documentor table. Not too fun, but works in a pinch.

Hello there,

Thanks for writing to us.
We are releasing update for Documentor in 1 or 2 days, which will solve this issue. We will notify you after update release.

Thank you for your patience.

Best Regards,
Sagar.

This issue is still open as of february 7th 2016.

See my guide at:
https://www.realitybychanting.com/guide/

The plugin appears to be designed for updating the hierarchy as a batch, all of which is saved during a single post, instead of updating the post order by using an ajax call every time a page is moved within the hierarchy.

The current method will eventually fail, so it is not possible to create an unlimited number of sections, and Documentor can only be used for small documents.

The only workaround that I can think of is to use the pro version, break your documentation into chapters or sections, and to place multiple ‘documentor guide’ shortcodes on the same page. This means it is not possible to move content between sections. But you could (I assume) create a (slow) but large document.

Or is there a fix or workaround to this that I don’t know about?

Thanks

The correct is url is:
https://www.realitybychanting.com/the-oversing-guide/

It’s too bad really. The UI is pretty sweet. Works great. Beautiful to look at.
But the way you’re updating the sections table is for small scale stuff.
… damn… and it was looking so good…

HERE IS THE CAUSE OF YOUR DEFECT

1) You are not decomposing the array into a string, and reconstructing the array from the string on the server side. Instead you are passing variables (a single post with thousands of variables) to the server.
2) The server is truncating the post after whatever is set by php.ini->max_num_variables.
3) The first value you validate on the server side is the document name, which is one of the last variables sent in the array. This causes the error stating that the document name (guidename) is not ‘set’.

THE HACK
Get the hosting company to change max_num_variables to 1000 per 100 document sections. WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM: this variable is often sent half a dozen places, including .htaccess, and is almost impossible to find or override it. Furthermore, it is BAD PRACTICE to send so many variables to a server. (not that bad practice has ever stopped php developers. ??

THE FIX
In the posting routine, either serialize or json enconde the array, then send it as a single variable, and reconstruct the array on the server side. Given the relatively small amount of data.

This fix requires a few lines of code, will conform to accepted practices, and allow virtually unlimited number of document sections.

Hello @curtdoolittle

Thanks for your suggestion and solution for fix. We will fix it in upcoming update release of Documentor.

Thank you for your patience.

Best Regards,
Sagar