Warning

CommandsNext has been replaced by Commands. Both this article and CommandsNext itself is no longer maintained and may contain outdated information. CommandsNext will be deprecated in version 5.1.0 of DSharpPlus.

Custom Help Formatter

The built-in help command provided by CommandsNext is generated with a help formatter. This simple mechanism is given a command and its subcommands then returns a formatted help message. If you're not happy with the default help formatter, you're able to write your own and customize the output to your liking.

Simply inherit from BaseHelpFormatter and provide an implementation for each of the required methods.

public class CustomHelpFormatter : BaseHelpFormatter
{
    // protected DiscordEmbedBuilder embed;
    // protected StringBuilder strBuilder;

    public CustomHelpFormatter(CommandContext ctx) : base(ctx)
    {
        // embed = new DiscordEmbedBuilder();
        // strBuilder = new StringBuilder();

        // Help formatters do support dependency injection.
        // Any required services can be specified by declaring constructor parameters.

        // Other required initialization here...
    }

    public override BaseHelpFormatter WithCommand(Command command)
    {
        // embed.AddField(command.Name, command.Description);
        // strBuilder.AppendLine($"{command.Name} - {command.Description}");

        return this;
    }

    public override BaseHelpFormatter WithSubcommands(IEnumerable<Command> cmds)
    {
        foreach (var cmd in cmds)
        {
            // embed.AddField(cmd.Name, cmd.Description);
            // strBuilder.AppendLine($"{cmd.Name} - {cmd.Description}");
        }

        return this;
    }

    public override CommandHelpMessage Build()
    {
        // return new CommandHelpMessage(embed: embed);
        // return new CommandHelpMessage(content: strBuilder.ToString());
    }
}

Alternatively, if you're only wanting to make a few small tweaks to the default help, you can write a simple help formatter which inherits from DefaultHelpFormatter and modify the inherited EmbedBuilder property.

public class CustomHelpFormatter : DefaultHelpFormatter
{
    public CustomHelpFormatter(CommandContext ctx) : base(ctx) { }

    public override CommandHelpMessage Build()
    {
        EmbedBuilder.Color = DiscordColor.SpringGreen;
        return base.Build();
    }
}

Your final step is to register your help formatter with CommandsNext.

var discord = new DiscordClient();
var commands = discord.UseCommandsNext();

commands.SetHelpFormatter<CustomHelpFormatter>();

That's all there is to it.