Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic title

This forum is for all Flare issues related to the HTML5, WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, and Adobe Air Targets
Post Reply
Pat.Riv
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2007 7:58 am

Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic title

Post by Pat.Riv »

There is a bug in the way Flare does breadcrumbs. If, in your WebHelp output, you open a topic that has children in the TOC, the breadcrumb for that topic will default to the topic file name, as opposed to the topic title. This can lead to ugly breadcrumbs if the file name has things such as numbers and underscores (for example, it's not nice to see "create_bid_strategy3315" in your breadcrumb when it should be "Create Bid Strategy".

Until you can fix the bug, the workaround is to go into the topic properties and manually enter the topic title so it looks the way you want your breadcrumb to appear. This step should be unnecessary, but at least it allows your breadcrumb to look right for now.
Pat.Riv
LTinker68
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 7247
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:38 pm

Re: Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic title

Post by LTinker68 »

The text in the breadcrumb matches whatever text you put in the TOC entry for that topic. When you create a topic, if you choose not to specify a first heading at that time, then it automatically uses the topic filename as the first heading. And if you then drag that topic into the TOC to create an entry, then it uses that heading as the TOC entry text. But you can easily rename that TOC entry to "Create Bid Strategy". Even if you specify a heading in the topic, the TOC entry can be totally different (although I don't recommend that, since it would be confusing to the end user).
Image

Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic title

Post by NorthEast »

I don't think that's what Pat.Riv meant.
The topic names shown in the breadcrumb behave inconsistently if you have set the Title tag in your topics.
The breadcrumb text for the current topic will show the Title tag text instead of its TOC text, whereas all the parent topics will use the TOC text (regardless of whether they have Title tags).

For example, say you have topics A and B, where A is a book in the TOC and B is inside A.
The names of the topics in the TOC are A TOC text and B TOC text.
The title tags for the topics are A Title text and B Title text.

If you click on topic A, the breadcrumb will be A Title text.
If you click on topic B, the breadcrumb will be A TOC text > B Title text.

So the breadcrumb text displayed for topic A will change from A Title text to A TOC text when you click on topic B.
This is a bug/inconsitency in Flare.

Anyway, Pat.Riv, you'll be seeing the filenames because the topics in your project must have the filename text in their Title tags. I'm guessing you're working with an imported project, as this doesn't happen with topics that you create in Flare.
The solution is to remove this text from the Title tags (if they're not used for anything in your project), then the current topic in the breadcrumbs will use the text from the TOC.

You can remove these by hand, but it'd be much much quicker to use a find and replace. To do this...
- search for <title>*</title>
- replace it with nothing
For the options:
- select Find in (whole project)
- tick Use and select Wildcards
- tick Find in source code
joel7
Propeller Head
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:46 am

Re: Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic t

Post by joel7 »

FYI, this problem is still occurring in 2016.
Pernice
Propeller Head
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:39 am

Re: Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic t

Post by Pernice »

I have encountered this bug too (in Flare 12). For a long time I had my project configured a certain way and the behaviour was similar to what Dave Lee describes above in relation to parent/child topics. However, the topic title (displayed in the breadcrumbs and on the browser tab) always defaulted to the take the first heading on the page, which was fine. This was despite the Topic Title field being empty in the topic file properties.

But recently I made some changes to my TOC, adding a few new top-level books, and I noticed that for some topics - not all - the topic title (still empty in properties) was now defaulting to the filename. Perhaps this is connected to what LTinker was saying about what you specify on creation of the topic.

A workaround I found for me was to choose a variable for the Topic Title (in file properties, click the Select Variable icon). I chose Heading > Any Level. Now the breadcrumbs are OK, taking the first heading of the topic. It's not perfect because I'd rather have the shorter string I chose for the TOC, but it's acceptable. (And as Dave Lee pointed out, when viewing children of the top-level topic, the breadcrumbs are displayed correctly (with strings taken from the TOC).)
paul_collins
Propeller Head
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 7:25 am

Re: Breadcrumb Bug - Uses topic file name instead of topic t

Post by paul_collins »

FYI - I have a long-standing case (89863) open with Madcap which I submitted as "Normally the text displayed in the last element of a breadcrumbs entry is taken from the TOC label. If that TOC label contains a variable, then the topic title / H1 is used instead."
Post Reply