Can't find Topic to link to

[Mellissa Ruryk]

I don't understaaaaaanndddd! (Yes, I'm whining.)
I have several topics that are in my ToC, and I see them online when I publish (and I remember writing them) but when I go to link to them from another topic, they are not in the list of topics. When I look in the C:\H+M\Projects\HTML directory they are not there either. Where are they? How did they get there? Please help!

[Tim Green]

Hi Melissa,

Don't panic... if the topics are in your TOC then they're definitely there. Your friend here is the Topic Options tab on the left of the editor window. That will tell you what the Topic ID really is. Check the Topic ID field, and then look for that in the link list. My guess is that the topics just have IDs that are quite different from their visible captions.

[Mellissa Ruryk]

Thank you - I was able to follow your instructions and find the 'real' name of the topic. Does this happen when I edit the Topic Caption? Is there any way I can re-align the names so I can easily find the topic files the way I expect to?

[Tim Green]

Hi Melissa,

The topic ID never changes when you edit anything else, it is the permanent internal address of your topic. This is necessary, otherwise no references in your project would be able to find anything. It is created when you create your topics and you can adjust it then before saving the new topic. You can edit it in the Topic Options tab but normally you should never do that, particularly not if you have already published to formats that are linked to from somewhere else (for example WebHelp). When you change the topic ID that also changes the name of the output file created for the topic, and if there is a link to that file from somewhere else (for example a user who found the topic in your WebHelp and saved the link for later reference) then that external link will no longer work.