Questions on Duplicated TOC Entries

[Olivier Beltrami]

Hello,

In my help project, I have a chapter with topics and code examples for each of the apx 300 macro functions that are defined. I have used duplicated TOC entries so that each function can be found either in the "Alphabetical List of All Functions" or in one of the 15 sub-groups, such a "String Functions".

• How can I tell in the H&M UI if a TOC is duplicated ?
• When a TOC entry is duplicated, is one of them the "master" ? This is important to me because when the user clicks on previous page or next page, from within the "String Functions" section, for example, suddenly it jumps to a next topic in the "Alphabetical List of All Functions". Is there a way yo force the previous page or next page clicks to browse/remain in the branch where they are visually ?
• If a topic has 2 TOC entries pointing to it, what happens if I delete one of these ?
• What does the Check for Referrers say if I try to delete one of the 2 TOC entries for a given topic ?

Very best regards,

Olivier

[Tim Green]

Hi Olivier,

Multiple TOC entries are a little tricky. They "work", but there are caveats and limits. The only place where you can really use them with impunity is with the V3 skins from the Premium Pack, where I've done some extensive programming to deal with the normal problems they cause. This is explained here in the PP help:

http://www.it-authoring.com/info/pp3hel ... tries.html

There are two main problems with multiple TOC entries in normal skins: 1) Any external link to the topic file they point to will always highlight the FIRST entry in the TOC pointing to that file (the script searches the TOC from top to bottom and stops at the first hit) and 2) The Previous and Next links in the topic header don't work correctly for them.

Normally, the only way around these two problems is to use snippets and create real, separate topic files for each TOC entry, each with its own unique topic ID. Then the problems above go away. And since you have a snippet for the content of all the files you can still edit them all in one place. See here for instructions for both methods:

https://helpandmanual.com/help/index.ht ... ltiref.htm

Now to your questions:

• How can I tell in the H&M UI if a TOC is duplicated ?

I'm afraid there isn't really a method for identifying them easily. You can generate a project report and check the topic IDs, but you can't sort by topic IDs so it's easy to miss multiple references if you have a large project.

• When a TOC entry is duplicated, is one of them the "master" ?

No, they all have equal status. The only difference is that the one that comes first in the TOC is the one that will get highlighted when you link to the topic file. But that is not because of any status, only because it comes first.

Is there a way yo force the previous page or next page clicks to browse/remain in the branch where they are visually ?

Not with standard skins. This only works in the V3 skins, or if you use the snippet method for creating a separate topic for each duplicate, referenced above.

• If a topic has 2 TOC entries pointing to it, what happens if I delete one of these ?

That is relatively safe. Even if the option for deleting referred files is activated the file won't be deleted if there is still another reference to the topic. I say "relatively", because there is also no indication whether you are deleting the last TOC entry to the topic or not...

• What does the Check for Referrers say if I try to delete one of the 2 TOC entries for a given topic ?

Multiple TOC entries aren't covered by Find Referrers. Try it and see: If there are no other links Find Referrers will list zero incoming or outgoing references, no matter how many TOC items point to the topic.

[Olivier Beltrami]

Hi Tim,

Thank you very much.

use snippets and create real, separate topic files for each TOC entry, each with its own unique topic ID

Yes, I had thought of this, and I may yet do this.

I did buy the latest Premium Pack a year ago. But I was reluctant to give-up my tweaked skin and HTML and start anew. The HTML tweaking I have done on my skin is no rocket science but, for me, any foray into HTML is hard work.

Very best regards,

Olivier

[BertholdL]

Hi Tim,

Multiple TOC entries are a little tricky. They "work", but there are caveats and limits. The only place where you can really use them with impunity is with the V3 skins from the Premium Pack

Is this inforamation still valid? In which way the V3 skins differ from other skins? I could not find it in the documentation.
And: Are you referring to multiple TOC entries linking to several anchors within one topic? Or to referencing a certain topic in various places in the TOC?

Thank you for clarifying!

Best regards
Berthold

[Tim Green]

Hi Berthold,

The V3, V4 and V5 skins in the Premium Pack all have intelligent handling for multiple TOC entries pointing to the same topics. This also works for multiple entries pointing to anchors in the same topic.

That being said, however, that functionality is only provided to deal with projects that happen to use TOC entries like that. We really don't recommend it. If something is important enough to have its own TOC entry then it's also important enough to have its own TOC file. That's a much cleaner way of handling things.

If you want genuine duplicates of topics in different locations of the TOC it is also cleaner to have just one direct version. For all the copies, create new topics with their own unique IDs and insert the original topic as a linked snippet. A copy of the current version of the original topic will then be inserted in those topics when you publish and they will then be unique topics with their own separate topic files.