Need Auto-Update for TOC Entries in Help output

[wst]

ENHANCEMENT REQUEST - IF YOU READ THIS, PLEASE VOTE

Currently, when authors change the <h1> text string for a topic in the Topic's HTML file, the TOC label for that topic does not update accordingly in the Project Organizer/TOCs/* files (<FlareProject>/Project<filename>.fltoc file).

This is true even when the Topic file's Properties have the Topic Title attribute value set to “Always use first topic heading”.

BACKGROUND:

Depending on the output type your team plans to use:

Flare output-to-PDF dynamically constructs the TOC:

The first <hx> text string in all Topic files is dynamically updated in the TOC, Cross-References, and Relationship Tables during the output-to-PDF process. So if the <hx> text string changes, those changes are used in the PDF output (even if the old text string is visible within the source files in the Flare authoring environment). This is true for both the PDF file's "bookmark-list" TOC entries and for the Flare TOC.proxy entries.

Flare output-to-Online-Formats (WebHelp/HTML Help):

All topic titles in the output-to-Online-Formats TOC appear exactly as typed into the Project Organizer /TOCs/* files (<FlareProject>/Project<filename>.fltoc file). NO DYNAMIC UPDATES to match the current text string within the Topic's HTML file. (Bug Submission - Case 23422)

However, the first <hx> text string in all Topic files is dynamically updated to match the current text string for Cross-References, Relationship Tables, Concept Link popups, and Related Topics popups.

BENEFITS

The output-to-Online-Formats need to have the TOC text strings dynanically match the current <hx> text within the Topic's HTML file:

+ preferably updating all related TOC entries whenever the <hx> changes
+ AND matching Flare's behavior for output-to-PDF so that TOC entries for Imported files are also updated.

The current output-to-Help TOC behavior causes trouble for authoring teams:

- Maintenance nightmare when one Topic is used in multiple Help outputs. If the <hx> text changes, multiple TOCs must be manually updated.

- When multiple authoring teams contribute Topics for a Flare project, with files being "Imported" from various locations... maintenance nightmare when one of the "Imported" Topic's <hx> text changes. Multiple TOCs must be manually updated and the author who changed that text may not have any idea which TOCs are now out-of-synch.

- To guarantee that all TOC entries match the current Topic's <hx> text, authors must manually check every entry in the TOC to verify that it matches the current text in the topic. With thousands of topics per output, that’s some serious end-of-release overhead!

Flare already does the right thing for PDF output. Please enhance Flare's output-to-Help behavior so that authors do not need to worry about the TOC entries matching the most recent text changes within the Topic HTML files.

[LTinker68]

This is not something I would want in my projects, or at least not in all the targets, so if you submit a feature request, make sure you specify that you'd like it to be a configurable option, preferably at the target level.

The reason I wouldn't want it in all targets is that my topics might have titles that are too long to appear in the contents pane of the WebHelp output, so in many cases I manually change the TOC entry so it'll fit in the space allowed.

[wclass]

I agree with Lisa on this one - it has to be optional (but there are some targets that I night find it handy).

I often have a different tag in the TOC than in the heading. For example, I might have a lot of topics that start with "How To abc, def ... etc". In the TOC, I make the Book level say "How To:" and then each topic below I remove that part of the phrase as it makes the TOC entry shorter and I hate seeing a repeated phrase all the way down a column just taking up room. If I ever updated these headings I wouldn't want to automatically change the TOC.
Also, I tend to work with a lot of different TOCs and targets in the one project - which ones would be updated and could you choose just some? I can see your suggestion working better in projects with only one or two TOCs.

[jackieros]

I agree with Wendy. The need for having a way to automatically match the TOC to the topic titles when titles change is absolutely essential. I sometimes need to use the same topic in 4 or more different outputs and the overhead involved in manually updating all of them every time we change a title is mind boggling. Plus, since people can easily forget to update one of them, we have to go through all the TOCs carefully every time to make sure nothing was missed.

I'd be happy to see a configurable option so that one could set the default behavior to automatically update the TOCs or not. Best would be to provide the option to set the default for the project as linked or not, and also offer the option to override the default at a topic level - i.e. by default I want the TOC to always match the topic title, but for a specific, very long title, I might want to unlink it so I can shorten the title for a particular topic. (In this case, ideally the behavior could be configured in the same way for PDF or Help outputs).

But my first priority is to have an option one way or the other to automatically sync topic titles and my TOC.

Important: If the title has conditional text in it, the TOC title must sync the text according to the conditions set for that output... (Same for PDFs).

[NorthEast]

I think the easiest and most flexible solution would be to allow TOC links to be set up as cross-references.

At the moment, a TOC link basically just behaves like a hyperlink.

If you could allow TOC links to support cross-references (xref) as well as hyperlinks; then if you set it as a xref, the link text would be updated from a xref format.

[RamonS]

I second that the proposed behavior needs to be optional. Plenty of times I had headings that were too long for the ToC, but OK in the topic. I don't want those to be changed in the ToC automatically, because that would be a maintenance nightmare as I'd have to fix the ToC each time.

[SteveS]

ENHANCEMENT REQUEST - IF YOU READ THIS, PLEASE VOTE...

And don't forget to add your enhancement request at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.

This forum is a peer to peer forum and there is no guarantee the folk from Madcap will see requests added here. Of course, they do look in from time to time, but we should use the correct format for bugs and enhancements

[Steve Silberman]

I agree with wst's original post. As far as configuration goes, she specified:
when the Topic file's Properties have the Topic Title attribute value set to “Always use first topic heading”.
That seems to me to be sufficient. Where topic titles are going to be entered manually, that option shouldn't be chosen.
Steve

[jivana]

I am missing this feature, too - I was looking for it when I came across this post.
I suppose at the target level with the option to overrride it at the topic level would be desirable at a minimum.

[pdenchfield]

I just submitted an enhancement request for "dynamically updated TOC label options" at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx and referenced this thread for more details.

[DAV]

Hello!

Have it done yet?

Thanks,
Alexander

[Nita Beck]

Have it done yet?

Not that I know of. If this is important to you, put in a feature request to MadCap. The more requests for a particular enhancement, the more likely it is that MadCap will act. The fewer requests, the less likely MadCap will act.

[MPighi]

Hi everyone,

are there any news about this enhancement? If no I'm going to re-send the feature request.
To me this seems to be an ultra-basic and needed feature.

Thanks
Michele