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WordPress

WP_Screen::add_help_tab( array $args )

Since
3.3.0, 4.4.0
Source
wp-admin/includes/class-wp-screen.php:633
Adds a help tab to the contextual help for the screen.

Description

Call this on the load-$pagenow hook for the relevant screen, or fetch the $current_screen object, or use get_current_screen() and then call the method from the object.

You may need to filter $current_screen using an if or switch statement to prevent new help tabs from being added to ALL admin screens.

Compatibility

WordPress
since 4.4.0
PHP
7.4–8.6-dev
  • 6.7.7
  • 6.8.8
  • 6.9.7
  • 7.0.4
  • 7.1.0

Present in every tracked release (6.7.7 to 7.1.0), and compiles on PHP 7.4 through 8.6-dev.

Parameters

$argsarray
Array of arguments used to display the help tab.
  • $titlestringdefault: false

    Title for the tab.
  • $idstringdefault: false

    Tab ID. Must be HTML-safe and should be unique for this menu. It is NOT allowed to contain any empty spaces.
  • $contentstringdefault: empty string

    Optional. Help tab content in plain text or HTML.
  • $callbackcallabledefault: false

    Optional. A callback to generate the tab content.
  • $priorityintdefault: 10

    Optional. The priority of the tab, used for ordering.

Performance profile

How much work a call to WP_Screen::add_help_tab() does, and what it touches: the algorithmic scaling, the Zend instruction count per call across PHP versions, the hooks it hands control to, and the core code that calls it. Measured from the compiled opcodes, not a stopwatch, so every number is identical on any machine running the same PHP version, and every function in core is ranked by cost.

Cost class
Trivial

Touches nothing outside its own arguments.

Scaling
Constant

No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.

Instructions
17–23

Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 24.

Plugin surface
None

Nothing here hands control to plugin code.

Called by
1

1 place in core call this, so the cost is paid more often than your own code shows.

What it touches

  • hookthird-party callbacksapply_filters()one call below WP_Screen::add_help_tab()

What one call costs · 1 distinct outcome

One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost WP_Screen::add_help_tab() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.

WhenInstructionsCalls it makes
always17–23wp_parse_args(), sanitize_html_class()

Across PHP versions

Compiles the same on PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6-dev: 24 instructions, 17–23 executed per call, 2 branches. The work does not change between versions.

An instruction is not a fixed amount of time, so a matching count is not necessarily the same speed; what it rules out is a difference in the work itself.

Uses · 2

Used by · 1

Source code

	public function add_help_tab( $args ) {		$defaults = array(			'title'    => false,			'id'       => false,			'content'  => '',			'callback' => false,			'priority' => 10,		);		$args     = wp_parse_args( $args, $defaults ); 		$args['id'] = sanitize_html_class( $args['id'] ); 		// Ensure we have an ID and title.		if ( ! $args['id'] || ! $args['title'] ) {			return;		} 		// Allows for overriding an existing tab with that ID.		$this->_help_tabs[ $args['id'] ] = $args;	}

Changelog

Introduced in 3.3.0. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.

  1. 6.7.7
  2. 6.8.8
  3. 6.9.7
  4. 7.0.4
  5. 7.1.0

Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.

4.4.0
The $priority argument was added.from the docblock
3.3.0
Introduced.from the docblock

About this page

Parsed data
Generated from the wordpress-develop 7.1.0 tag, from src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-screen.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it.
Corrections
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