Eactly which referrer?

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Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Eactly which referrer?

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Self-quarantine hasn't helped my ability to understand...
Below, I have Checked Referrers in a series of topics that are about to be deleted.

When I went to delete them, I was stopped by the highlighted checkbox in the Delete Selected Entries? dialog below. In the image below, I have overlayed the "Delete selected entries?" dialog over the report created by "Check referrers."

Question is, which column will "Also delete referred topics files" delete -- "Is Referred By" or "Linked to", a link being (in my muddled brain) a form of reference -- or both?

I don't want to delete the topics under "Links to"
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Tim Green
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Re: Eactly which referrer?

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

This is a case of a misunderstanding caused by the use of the same word in two different contexts.

Find Referrers finds all references to and from a topic in the current project -- i.e. links to the topic in other topics, or use of the topic as a snippet, or links to other topics and use of other topics as snippets.

When you delete something in the TOC the "referred topic files" are the topics that the TOC entries you are deleting point to. This is often confusing because it's easy to assume that the TOC entry is the topic. Actually, the TOC is a separate file that contains a list of links. You can even view it inside the /Maps folder if you are using the uncompressed project format. So when you press DELETE in the TOC you are really just asking Help+Manual to delete a TOC entry, i.e. a hyperlink in this list. The "referred topic files" check box allows you to also delete the topic file that the link points to, so that you can delete both the TOC entry and the topic it refers to. It's quite possible to delete the TOC entry without deleting the file. In WebHelp and CHM an eWriter you can include topic files that aren't in the TOC, so that they can be displayed with links only.

However, when you delete something in the TOC and delete the "referred topic file(s)" you are really ONLY deleting the file associated with that TOC entry. Help+Manual would never delete any files referenced by hyperlinks inside that topic file. This would also not delete any topic files used as snippets inside the topic you are deleting.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Re: Eactly which referrer?

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Thanks - as I said, more than the usual portions of my brain are numb from Covid confinement...
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