Duplicate TopicID in merged projects

[bilaai_b]

Hi,

In my main master project, I have two additional projects merged with the option “Content is merged when master project is compiled” enabled.

Normally, Help+Manual automatically checks for duplicate Topic IDs within a single project. However, it does not automatically detect duplicate Topic IDs across merged projects. These conflicts are only encountered during compilation of the master project. Unfortunately, there is no warning or notification when this occurs. As a result, any topic in a merged project that shares a Topic ID with the master project is silently excluded (removed) from the compiled output.

Is there a way to detect duplicate Topic IDs across merged projects? Ideally, the compiler could provide a warning during the build process and prompt the user with options—such as renaming the duplicate ID (automatically or manually), removing the duplicate topic, or choosing which version to keep.

Thanks.

[Tim Green]

Is there a way to detect duplicate Topic IDs across merged projects?

No, this is currently your responsibility. The best way to avoid it preemptively is to have a unique ID prefix in every project. You can set this for new topics in Configuration > Common Properties > Misc. It's the first item at the top of the page there.

You can't add ID prefixes globally within Help+Manual. There you have to do this manually for each affected topic in the topic options tab on the left of the editor window. Changing the ID there automatically updates all references within the project, but not external links.

If you have the Premium Pack add-on the Toolbox configuration and power tools utility it includes has a tool for adding and removing ID prefixes globally. See here in the Premium Pack documentation for details on this feature:

https://www.it-authoring.com/info/pp5he ... fixes.html

See here for information on the Premium Pack:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/products_hm_pluspack.html

Note that changing the IDs will also change the URLs of your topics in WebHelp, so you may not want to do this globally with documentation that is already online.

[bilaai_b]

Thank you for the information, Tim.

Just to confirm: the option “For new topics, automatically add this prefix to the topic ID suggestion” only applies to newly created topics, correct? Existing topics will retain their current Topic IDs and will not be affected by this setting, correct?

Kind regards.

[Tim Green]

Just to confirm: the option “For new topics, automatically add this prefix to the topic ID suggestion” only applies to newly created topics, correct? Existing topics will retain their current Topic IDs and will not be affected by this setting, correct?

Yes, that's correct. Changing them for existing topics would be an operation with high overheads because all the references in the entire project would also need to be updated, including internal links and the entire TOC as well.

[bilaai_b]

OK, thanks Tim.

Regards.