Display of topics in webhelp

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Tansy
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Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:37 am

Display of topics in webhelp

Unread post by Tansy »

I have a topic named TopicA and a TOC link to the topic named B. They are assigned to different builds and have different headers (and the same content). This works fine for PDF output - for Build A, I have the header TopicA, and for build B the header is TopicB. But that doesn't work for webhelp output as only one of the headers is used, irrespective of the build. How do I make different headers of the same chapter for two different builds in webhelp output?
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Tim Green
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Re: Display of topics in webhelp

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tansy,
How do I make different headers of the same chapter for two different builds in webhelp output?
I'm not 100% sure I understand how you are doing this from your description. However, there are two key things you need to know here:

1) Just excluding the chapter heading with a build option doesn't work on the chapters sub-topics in WebHelp. You need to apply build options explicitly to all the topics, both the chapter and its sub-topics.

2) The TOC entries and the topic files they point to can have separate build options. By default, applying a build option to a TOC entry also applies it to the topic file. However, if you then go down into Project Files > Topic Files you can apply different build options to the topic files.

So basically, you need to make sure that all the TOC entries and topic files you want to include/exclude have the build options you want. Then it should also work in WebHelp.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tansy
Posts: 89
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:37 am

Re: Display of topics in webhelp

Unread post by Tansy »

Still it doesn't seem to work.
1) Just excluding the chapter heading with a build option doesn't work on the chapters sub-topics in WebHelp. You need to apply build options explicitly to all the topics, both the chapter and its sub-topics.
I know this and I make sure that all build options are applied explicitly to all the topics.
2) The TOC entries and the topic files they point to can have separate build options. By default, applying a build option to a TOC entry also applies it to the topic file. However, if you then go down into Project Files > Topic Files you can apply different build options to the topic files.
I don't get it. The entry in the table of contents (the panel with links to chapters) appears correctly in each build, A for Build A and B for Build B. But I need to have different chapter headers (the ones that appear in the right, befor the chapter text). I tried to illustrate the issue in the screenshot below (sorry I had to paint over the real topics but hopefully it is illustrative enough)
2019-04-08_16-46-33.png
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Tim Green
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Re: Display of topics in webhelp

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tansy,
But I need to have different chapter headers (the ones that appear in the right, befor the chapter text).
That doesn't work, because you are linking to exactly the same topic file in each case. The TOC is just a list of links and both links are pointing to the same file, and the topic header is part of the file.

However, there is actually a better way of handling this: Delete the second reference to the topic and create a new empty topic. Then use the snippet tool in the project tab to insert the other topic as a linked snippet, so that the snippet is the only content of that new topic (From Topic / Snippet is Linked / Starts a New Paragraph).

Then the second topic is really a topic in its own right and you can edit its header to be different. However, there is still just one topic with the content (the first one) since the snippet is linked, so you still only edit the topic content in the same place.

This has the added advantage that you can also insert additional content above and below the snippet, if necessary. 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tansy
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Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:37 am

Re: Display of topics in webhelp

Unread post by Tansy »

Thank you Tim, will try that!
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