Top Nav, TOC, Breadcrumbs Relationships

[sds]

I'm super new to Flare - using 2018. Our vision for the page is similar to some of the outputs we've admired on MadCap's customer showcase page. We want the Top Nav skin so the user opens the main page and there may be a couple main topics up in the header - Release Notes, Contact, Etc... but we want them to just be plain clickable links (not drop downs with an entire lengthy TOC tree underneath). I've learned that the Master TOC is required in order to achieve breadcrumbs, and maybe even the Mini TOC's on each Topic, but it's also creating the lengthy drop downs that we don't want on the main page Top Nav. I know that it's possible to achieve the look we're going for, because I'm seeing it on other online help centers created with MadCap... but I'm driving myself nuts trying to figure out how.

I need:

1. A handful of clickable links in the Top Nav bar, *without* drop-downs displaying the entire TOC - maybe they even point to a Topic that's nestled in the TOC somewhere
2. A TOC in order to achieve linked breadcrumbs
3. A TOC in order to create Mini TOC's on individual Topics

Thanks.

EDIT: At the very least, I'd be satisfied if we could get just our main topics in the pull down on the Top Nav (Top Shelf Books in Master TOC?). How can I at least exclude all of the other sub-Topics from the Top Nav pull down, but keep them active in the breadcrumbs?

[NorthEast]

1. Just put the topics in the top level of your TOC. They will not have drop down menus, unless you've put topics inside them in your TOC.

2. To have clickable links in your breadcrumbs, just make sure all your TOC items are linked to topics. If you have an item in your TOC which isn't linked to a topic, it'll appear in the breadcrumbs/menu but won't be clickable.

3. To have side menus on your topics, insert a menu proxy (not a miniTOC proxy) on your master page. You can choose whether it's context sensitive, and whether to show parent/child/sibling topics.

EDIT: At the very least, I'd be satisfied if we could get just our main topics in the pull down on the Top Nav (Top Shelf Books in Master TOC?). How can I at least exclude all of the other sub-Topics from the Top Nav pull down, but keep them active in the breadcrumbs?

Not sure what you're asking, but in your top nav skin, you can set the Top level menus to show on the Setup tab - so you can choose how much of your TOC to show in the drop-down menu.

As you're new, I'd suggest going through Flare's help - e.g. top nav tutorial: https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... on-Adv.htm