How do you change icons on TOC?

[lusragan]

Hi there,

I was just wondering if someone could give me some help. I have been trying to change some of the TOC topic icons to ones that show a little camera like the ones in the HTML help. I can't figure out how to do this with WebHelp though. How do you specify having different icons in the TOC and are there ones available in WebHelp that show cameras which signify movie based content in the topic? The skin that I'm using is based on the River skin if that's any help.

Cheers.

[doc_guy]

As far as I know, you can change ALL the topic icons, but you can't change them for specific topics, or even based on the type of topic. It's an all-or-nothing setting.

[LTinker68]

... but you can't change them for specific topics, or even based on the type of topic. It's an all-or-nothing setting.

No, you can that with v4. I don't think it was available in v3, but it might be.

First you go to the skin and create a new TocEntry class (Styles tab) and specify the icons for that class. Then in the Properties screen for a TOC entry in the TOC Editor (Basic tab), you select the appropriate class from the Style Class field.

That may only work for WebHelp output, and possibly DotNet Help. Don't know if it works for HTML Help.

[wclass]

Funny you should ask, I've just been experimenting with this. You can change the icons for webhelp and DotNet, but not for HTML Help (chms). You'll need to find your own icons, and then create the styles in the skin editor.
- Select the skin, open/show the Styles tab.
- Select the TOCEntry item, and add a new class for each different icon you want.
- You can change the font and the icons associated with the style.
- In your TOC, select the entry and apply the new style class using the Properties.

Here is an example of a Webhelp TOC up against a CHM toc - same project compiled with the different targets:

flareTocs.jpg

[lusragan]

That's great! Thanks for the tips and the extremely rapid responses.

Cheers.

[doc_guy]

Wow. Learn something new every day.

Thanks guys!

[lusragan]

Just wanted to say that I managed to get it to work. Thanks again.

Drew

[SteveS]

...and a belated 'welcome to the forums'...

[rotano]

Hi Folks,

Brand new to the forums and fairly new to Flare. Using Flare 6.1.0 on Windows 7 VM on a Macbook pro, output to WebHelp.

Problem: I am trying to figure out how to increase the "line height" of vertical spacing between TOC books and pages. The Flare Skin styles editor allows you to control a few TOC Entry settings, but not line height.

Right now, the TOC entries seem a bit "scrunched" and I'd like to increase their vertical spacing by a slight amount.

From reading this discussion, it looks like you can add a new class to modify more TOC Entry settings.

My question is, can I control the TOC Entry line height for WebHelp TOC Entries? Would I add a new class to the TOC Entry style? If so, what class would I create?

Thanks,

-Patrick

[NorthEast]

My question is, can I control the TOC Entry line height for WebHelp TOC Entries? Would I add a new class to the TOC Entry style? If so, what class would I create?

Looking at the available properties for TocEntry, there aren't actually any settings to control spacing there (and a TocEntry class would just have the same available properties).

The only workaround I can think of is to make the TOC icons larger - i.e. increase the vertical size of the icons by adding some (transparent) space. The TOC entries will match the vertical height of the icon, so you'll get more spacing around the text.

[LTinker68]

Another workaround would be to modify the Toc.htm file in the generated output (in the Skin subfolder of the output) and add a line-height attribute to the body tag in that file. You'd have to modify that file every time you build the output, or do what I do and modify it then make a copy of it outside the project, then every time I build I copy it back to the generated output and overwrite the one Flare had just created.

And, of course, submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.

[rotano]

Thanks Mad-folks.

I tried the en-largen the Icon trick, plus larger icon and large font, but still the line height remains scrunched. I may suggest this as a feature. Thanks for the help.

-Patrick

[NorthEast]

I tried the en-largen the Icon trick, plus larger icon and large font, but still the line height remains scrunched. I may suggest this as a feature. Thanks for the help.

Really? It works fine for me.

I edited the icon and added transparent space to its height, updated the icon in the skin, and the TOC entries use the full height of the icon.
In the screenshot below it's quite large (48px) just to demonstrate.

If you've increased your font size, then obviously the icon height has to be larger than the font.

TOC spacing.png

[LTinker68]

I tried the en-largen the Icon trick, plus larger icon and large font, but still the line height remains scrunched.

Really? It works fine for me... I edited the icon and added transparent space to its height, updated the icon in the skin, and the TOC entries use the full height of the icon....

Patrick, you have to reselect the icons in the skin. If you had the icons in a folder somewhere, added them to the skin, then modified the icons in the original folder, then you might have assumed that Flare would pick up those modified icons automatically. It doesn't -- you have to go into the skin and re-select the icon, and not just by selecting the icon from the existing drop-down list in the skin, but by clicking the Browse button and navigating to the icon and selecting it. When you do that, Flare saves the icon into a different location, which is why your edits weren't picked up automatically -- you didn't edit the version of the icon where Flare had stored it.

[smajors]

... but you can't change them for specific topics, or even based on the type of topic. It's an all-or-nothing setting.

No, you can that with v4. I don't think it was available in v3, but it might be.

I have followed the instructions given by the feedback on how to apply a new icon but it's not working. It was pointed out somewhere that in the skin styles, the Navigation Panel has a TOC style, so far this is the only place the open/closed/topic icons are specified. There is nothing set in the TOC Entry. I added a class to the TOC Entry to add a topic icon for a PDF. I went to the Topic in the TOC I want to apply this icon to and saved and it didn't change.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

[wclass]

I have got this to work in a HTML 5 skin but something dodgy is definitely going on.
I had my new icons in Pictures folder, and did the following steps (double check they are the same as your steps):

• Open the skin (make sure it is in the right medium - I used Web medium, have not tried tablet or mobile)
• Style tab
• Navigation section > Toc Entry
• Add Class - for example TestPDF
• Select TestPDF and expand to show the Icons selections
• For each icon type (Closed Book, Open, Topic, and New) Browse to the folder where your image is (in my example, Pictures) and select it.
• Save the skin and close
• Go to your TOC and apply the new style to the Toc entry using the Properties dialog.
• Save and build.

Places where I made some mistakes (or Flare did): first, when I added a new Class, the selection defaults to the generic TocEntry icons instead of the one I just created and I did not at first add the icon correctly. Next, if I closed the skin and re-opened it, the selections often disappeared (this one is a bug)! and I had to re-enter them. This happened a few times before I realised what was going on - I had more than one type of icon and some worked, then disappeared - very strange.

So I suggest you try again, this time make your icon updates, then save and close the skin and build before you open it again.

(and then I'll report the error).

[smajors]

First, I'm not sure what you mean by the Navigation section. I have Navigation Panel that shows TOC but can't add a class to it. Then I have just TOCEntry where the icons were blank by default, I was able to add a class to that called PDF TOC.

PDF TOC icon style.jpg

Would I just add the PDF icon for the Topic icon or also for the open and closed book?

Thanks!

[wclass]

Are you still using Flare v9 - that screen shot looks line 9? The skin editor has changed in v10 and has tried to group the items (and so now there is a Navigation section).

If the icon will only ever be used with a topic and not a book, then yes, you only have to update the TopicIcon and not the open/closed ones (though it won't break if you assign them all the same).

Also, I don't think spaces are allowed in the class name - can you rename to "PDFToc" or delete and re-insert?

[smajors]

Good catch, that worked! You were right, there should be no spaces in the image name or the TOCEntry name. Thank you!!

This is what I was going for.

PDF icons.jpg

[smajors]

Does anyone know how to delete a TOC style class? I was able to delete it in the skin but the old style classes I no longer use and have deleted are still appearing in the TOC properties, so I have to keep remembering which one is the correct style class to choose.

tocStyleClass.jpg

[smajors]

Update: Sorry, disregard my last post. I cleaned the project (deleted output folders) and deleted the Analyzer folder for good measure, closed Flare, and they are now gone!

My new question is, I have the PDF icon added as a style class in the default skin, do I need to add it to my other skins to use it? I see the style class as an option in other TOCs using a different skin however after publishing I don't see it working. Would I need to change the properties in the TOC for that topic to open in the default skin that has that style class?

Thanks in advance!