Linking a Topic to a Book after WebHelp generation.

[Kutra]

Hi:

When you create a new Book in the TOC, you get a checkbox to link to a Topic to it such that when the book is clicked/opened (in the WebHelp), the topic is displayed. I forgot to link a topic to a particular book and generated the WebHelp which has passed quality assurance. I do not have the option of regenerating the WebHelp, so I wanted to know if anybody knows how to tweak the files in the WebHelp output to link a topic to a book. Note that the book is already being displaced in the TOC, but the topic is not displayed in the TOC.

If we can accomplish the above, then I would like to know if there is a way to apply a conditional tag to a topic after WebHelp generation as well. The reason is topics in my project that are linked to a book have a "DoNotDisplay" conditional tag in the TOC. This ensures that when the book is clicked, the topic is displayed in the right frame, but the topic itself is not displayed under the book in the TOC.

Please advise on how to do both the things above.

K

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

There may be a way to accomplish linking the topic to the book after the fact. However, I've never tried sorting it.

As far as the conditional tags go, they are totally a "before you generate" sort of thing. Up until this point in time, they have always been a "before you generate" thing. No way to use them after the fact. By saying "up until this point in time" I mean to imply that it's not presently possible. But who knows what the future holds? Maybe a future version will introduce this possibility.

Cheers... Rick

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[Kutra]

Thanks, Rick.

In that case, do you know if there's a way to add a topic to a TOC after WebHelp generation? We typically never do such kind of post-WebHelp generation, but we are in a pickle this time to have that topic exposed in the WebHelp.

Regards,

K

[Captiv8r]

Hi again

I might think the simplest approach here would be to just re-generate. This would create a fresh set of output files on your local PC. Then selectively copy just the navigation files from your PC to the server.

I realize you said that things have already gone through some process management or quality control measures so you can't simply copy all of it to the server, but thought I'd toss this out as a possibility.

Cheers... Rick

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[Kutra]

Thanks for your reply. I took a clue from the "navigation files" that you mentioned in your post. Instead of generating a new WebHelp and copying over the files (and risking any new issues), I decided to work with "navigation files" that were previously generated. I changed one TOC-related XML file (whtdata#A.xml) in the whxdata folder and 2 files (whlstt#A.htm) in the whgdata folder to add the code for linking a topic to a book.

It's a simple change actually. You need to add a "url" and "a href" node respectively in the XML nodes that contain the name of the book in whtdata#A.xml and whlstt#A.htm and you are all set. Did enough testing to have confidence in this solution.

Two downsides to this workaround:

1. The navigational path at the top does not reflect the correct path when that topic is displayed in the right frame but that is expected.
2. TOC synchronization does not work for this topic.

Regards,

K