First topic with children always toggled open

[Mario Tonissen]

I'm currently using the trial version of H&M to practice and find out if we can apply it. I know it has limitations but we're nearly there to buy a license. I want to make a webhelp with several topics in the TOC. Each topic has children. After publishing to webhelp the first topic is always toggled open, showing the child topics. As the main topics all represent different help subjects I would like to see that after publishing all main topics are closed, so our customers can go to the proper help topic. I've browsed through all settings but can't seem to find it. Is there a way to achieve this?

[Martin Wynne]

Hi Mario,

Go to Configuration > Common Properties > Language Settings.

Set the Default ("Home") Topic to the required opening topic (usually an introduction page). If it is a child topic the parent topic will expand in the TOC. If it is a parent topic it won't expand in the TOC.

N.B. when you are editing in H&M and do a Preview of the output, the last topic which you were editing shows as the first topic. This doesn't happen when you publish the output to your web site.

regards,

Martin.

[Mario Tonissen]

Hello MArtin,

many thanks for your reply.I've tried to apply your solution. I've set the Home topic to the very first Topic (called chapter as I found out in the manual). After publishing it stayed the same. I want this chapter to be published as a "closed book" (icon), so all children collapsed. Now it's published as "open book", so the main chapter is toggled open and showing the children. All children have "normal" topicnames, The first chapter however only can be referred to as TOC1321546, which I chose to be the Home location.

[Tim Green]

Hi Mario,

If the home topic is in a chapter then that chapter will be open when the help opens. If you really want everything to be closed then you must create a topic at the top of the TOC that is not a chapter (i.e. it does not have any sub-topics) and make that your default topic. However, in most cases it would really be better to have your first chapter contain the introduction topics and have open when the user views the home topic. That will make your documentation more accessible.

[Mario Tonissen]

ah yes, I see what you mean. The reason for my choice is that we have several different software programs. I want to present each program as a separate chapter. I will make a top topic with only an introduction to our help. Tnx for the help