Colleagues,
I'd never ask RH to produce something I don't have to edit.
But consider this:
When you ask the wizard to find every instance of first-level
keywords already entered into the index, it does so reliably. You
can accept all, or edit the checkboxes.
This alone is the basis for assembling and applying a master
one-level index to a group of closely related projects. In my case
it's a release notes compendium, a master project with about a
dozen sub-projects. Each sub is what we produced at the time of the
release. They have a lot in common over time. In retrospect,
indexing each would have benefited from using a master list that
couldn't exist until now.
Now I have that list, in an hhk file of keywords only (no
topic links). It took some doing, but not so much as you may think.
I've been refining it.
I could re-index all the subs consistently and re-publish
them into the master WebHelp package. A significant side benefit:
Breadcrumbs and search highlights for all. (You get these in a
master project only for subs generated in RH 7. To be "consistent"
I would have to forgo these features. Not that I'm a slave to
consistency, but it would be nice to upgrade all.)
Also consider this:
When you ask the wizard to find new terms, it comes up with
two-level keyword suggestions and, once in a while, it's right.
Why, then, couldn't it track multilevel terms in a topic,
especially when I'm providing the list and not asking RH to make
the associations? This isn't Google science.
Thanks.
Harvey