Multiple Mini TOC's per Topic?

[jessemds]

Hi,

I am slowly but surely getting the hang of this program! Hopefully you can steer my in the right direction with this one...

I have a topic with one H1, and multiple H2's and H3's. At the top of the topic I have a mini-toc that I set to list all of the H2's. Its TOC depth is set to 2. The proxy is inserted right after H1. It lists all of my H2's, exactly as I wanted. Then I added another mini-toc below my first H2 with the idea of having that mini-toc list all of my h3's that come after this H2. However, as soon as I added my second mini-toc, the first one was no longer listing all of my H2's. It only listed my first H2 that came before the second mini-toc.

I do see a pattern here and I think I know what it is doing. The mini-toc only includes headings up until the next mini toc.

In more plain english, This one topic is a chapter. Right after the chapter title I want to list "Contents of this chapter". Those contents are the H2's. Right after each H2 (what I call a section) I want to list "Contents of this section". Those are my H3's.

WOW, that sure sounds confusing but hopefully someone knows what I am talking about and can steer me straight.

Thanks

Jesse

[LTinker68]

I do see a pattern here and I think I know what it is doing. The mini-toc only includes headings up until the next mini toc.

No, it's based on book levels in the TOCs. Set it up like the following:

Code: Select all

Topic 1
Topic 2
Book A      <-- BookAintro.htm with mini-TOC proxy set to 2
   Topic A1
   Topic A2
   Book B   <-- BookBintro.htm with mini-TOC proxy set to 0
      Topic B1
      Topic B2
   Book C   <-- BookCintro.htm with mini-TOC proxy set to 0
      Topic C1
      Topic C2
Topic 3
Topic 4
Book D     <-- BookDintro.htm with mini-TOC proxy set to 0
    Topic D1
    Topic D2

When you click on Book A, you'll see listed Topic A1, Topic A2, Book B, Topic B1, Topic B2, Book C, Topic C1, Topic C2.
When you click on Book B, you'll see listed Topic B1, Topic B2.
When you click on Book C, you'll see listed Topic C1, Topic C2.
When you click on Book D, you'll see listed Topic D1, Topic D2.

[jessemds]

Lisa,

i've been messing around with the mini TOC proxy but I cannot get it to display the way that I want to.

Let's talk specifcally about the printed target first (if that's OK). I understand that the mini toc proxy must be added to topics in order for the mini toc to display in the printed target. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems that depending on if the Use TOC Depth for Heading Levels options is selected in the target settings, it changes the way the mini TOC behaves. In addition, it has to do with settings on the mini toc itself and also the structure of the main TOC. I think it CAN also be set to use heading levels.

Well here is what a portion of my master TOC looks like.

Book 1
Book 1a
topic a
topic b
Book 1b
topic
topic
Book
topic
topic
topic
Book 1c
book
topic
topic

I am sorry if that looks slopppy but hopefully you get the picture.

If this even matters, the topics linked to book 1 uses H1 and books 1b, 1c, etc have a H2.

What I want is to have a mini TOC in book 1's topic, that lists all of the "main" books underneath it. main books being 1a, 1b, 1c. Then, for example I would like book 1a's topic to have a mini toc that lists the most upper level books or topics right under it (topic a and b)

I have experimented with all differnet settings but I cannot get this to happen. For some reason, the mini toc is not even including some books underneath book 1.

I am sorry if this is confusing.

thx!

[LTinker68]

I'm just starting into playing with print output (haven't had a need for it before now). From what I understood from the help, the "Use TOC Depth for Heading Levels" is supposed to design the appearance of the printed table of contents based on the book and topic structure in the TOC file. So top-level topics and books would have their labels at 0", second-level books and topics would have their labels indented a tad (about .2"), and third-level books and topics would have their labels indented a tad more (about .4"). You can control those positions by modifying p.TOC1, p.TOC2, etc. If you don't have that TOC depth option enabled, then all the labels are at 0" and they're all using p.TOC1. At least in my project, because at the moment all of my heading are H1. If you have a mix of headings, then that might change things.

That said, for PDF output, I can't get the mini-TOCs to display anything unless I have the TOC depth field enabled. When it's enabled, then all of the mini-TOCs display the correct text, just as they did in the WebHelp output. In Word output, the results are mixed -- the highest level mini-TOC lists some items but stops at the next topic that contains a mini-TOC. In other words, to use my previous example, the first mini-TOC lists the items down to Book A's intro, but it doesn't include Book B or Book C. Also, those second-level mini-TOCs (in Book B and Book C) are blank. But just for Word output -- they're fine in PDF.

Like I said, though, I'm just starting to play with print output and haven't checked the help to see if there's something else to do to prep the mini-TOCs to work in print output. Hopefully someone else who has used mini-TOCs in print output will chime in.

[jessemds]

Well, this was the magic sentence Lisa:

In Word output, the results are mixed -- the highest level mini-TOC lists some items but stops at the next topic that contains a mini-TOC. In other words, to use my previous example, the first mini-TOC lists the items down to Book A's intro, but it doesn't include Book B or Book C. Also, those second-level mini-TOCs (in Book B and Book C) are blank. But just for Word output -- they're fine in PDF.

I just created a PDF target and the mini TOC's work as expected. For some reason, going to Word first messes with the mini TOC's and produces very strange results. I will blame that on Microsoft and not my friends at Madcap.

Thanks again

Jesse

[bbuchko]

Good tip. I'll probably be transferring my online help into Word and PDF formats soon, so it's good to know what to expect even if there's no easy solution.