'Called From:' Reference List

[Matt Everett]

I particularly like this feature request by Andy in the User to User section so I thought it would be good to include it in the wish list:

I want to know all topics which call my current topic.

Expample: If there are no more topics which have a reference to the current topic, i could delete the current topic.

Is there any way to get a "called from" list?

I can think of one way to do this ... delete the topic you want to know the references for, when you compile, errors will be thrown up from the pages which reference this undefined topic.

But I don't think anyone would want to use such a messy method, unless you're desperate!

[Andy]

I have to add:

... and it would be very kind of H & M if it would show me a warning if i try to delete a topic which is called from another topic.

Andy.

[Matt Everett]

Absolutely! ... I agree entirely.

[Alexander Halser]

I am not so sure whether this is a good idea. Help & Manual saves internal shortcuts with the referring topics which can be scanned quickly. These shortcuts are used to update all referring links when you change the ID of a topic (which does not happen very often, I presume). However, although the scan works pretty fast, it takes several fractions of a second to perform it.

The situation is be different when you delete a topic: if you delete a chapter with all child entries, Help & Manual needs to scan the referrers of all topics which you are going to delete. Before the topics are actually deleted. This would lead to a pause of - worst case - several seconds before the dialog box "Do you want to delete..." actually appears.

Ok, we could implement some advanced intelligent bulk search... but how about a right-click option to show all referring topics? Could be reported in the message window so that you can conveniently select the topics.

[Andy]

but how about a right-click option to show all referring topics? Could be reported in the message window so that you can conveniently select the topics.

Selecting the referring topics would be nice.

If it takes longer, you could do a background search while the message "do you really want to delete..." appears.

Or how about an option "[x] check for refering topics" in the "do you want to delete"-dialog box? If there are refering topics a second question-box appears: [delete], [show references] [cancel]...

Andy.

[Matt Everett]

I think Alexander is right here, we don't want to slow H&M down. Speed is what makes it such an elegant program to use.

... the right-click suggestion definitely has a lot of merit, especially if you could select the topics directly from the reference list.

... but andy's suggestion

an option "[x] check for refering topics" in the "do you want to delete"-dialog box?

at least warns the user of the consequences of the 'delete topic' action.