Not understanding breadcrumbs and links

[MarinaMichaels]

I'm generating WebHelp and using Flare 3.1 on Windows XP Pro SP 2 or 3.

Here is what I want to do:

1. I want to use breadcrumbs on most pages, but not on the title page and the welcome page. Do I need to create a different master page for the title and welcome pages?

2. I want the breadcrumbs to have links in the sequence. However, unless I have a book linked to a topic within it, the links aren't "live." However, if I do put a link in the TOC from the book to the topic, then, when I click on the book in the generated output, it displays the topic. I am sure this is because I do not understand what I am doing.

Any help is, as always, greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Breadcrumbs.gif

[NorthEast]

1. I want to use breadcrumbs on most pages, but not on the title page and the welcome page. Do I need to create a different master page for the title and welcome pages?

Yes, for those pages you'll need to create a different master page without the breadcrumbsProxy on it.

After you've done this, make a topic style for this master page:
1. Create a new class of the html tag, e.g. html.noCrumbs.
2. Set the mc-master-page property to link to the master page file.

e.g.

Code: Select all

html.noCrumbs
{
	mc-master-page: url('../MasterPages/noCrumbs.flmsp');
}

To link a topic (or topics) to that master page, open the topic properties and select your new class from the Topic Style Class (e.g. noCrumbs).

2. I want the breadcrumbs to have links in the sequence. However, unless I have a book linked to a topic within it, the links aren't "live." However, if I do put a link in the TOC from the book to the topic, then, when I click on the book in the generated output, it displays the topic. I am sure this is because I do not understand what I am doing.

It looks like you have the same topic linked to both the book (API Basics) and the topic (API Overview) - this is where your problem is, you can't have a book and a topic linked to the same file. If you have two things (books or topics) in your TOC that are linked to the same file then the breadcrumbs won't work.

You either need to (a) remove the API Overview topic link from the TOC (leaving the book link to that topic), or (b) if you want to keep that TOC structure then make a new topic called API Basics and link that to the book in the TOC.

[RamonS]

There is one trick to get the same page to be linked to different ToC items and have breadcrumbs work. You create the topic and turn it into a snippet. Then you add new empty topics that will be hooked into the ToC and place the snippet in each of them. Any changes are made in the snippet and at compile time Flare makes several independent, but identical topics out of it. And then breadcrumbs work as expected.

[MarinaMichaels]

Thank you to both of you!

Dave, your explanation improved my understanding of master pages by a huge amount. That part worked perfectly. Thank you!

As for the links, I am still trying to understand that part. I'll spend some time reading the help and experimenting to increase my understanding of links, then post a follow-up with either my success or more questions.

[NorthEast]

As for the links, I am still trying to understand that part. I'll spend some time reading the help and experimenting to increase my understanding of links, then post a follow-up with either my success or more questions.

When Flare generates your help, it adds in the breadcrumb links to the topic file. So, that means a topic can only have one breadcrumb trail.

In your help, the 'API Overview' topic is actually linked twice in the TOC, to both a book (API Basics) and a topic. However, it can't have two different breadcrumb trails, 'API Basics' and 'API Basics > API Overview', so only one breadcrumb trail is used (the latter one in this case).

[MarinaMichaels]

Thanks! I think I understand that part. And I am getting the results I want, but I am not entirely sure I know what I am doing.

What I wanted was this: When someone clicks on the book, I wanted them to either see nothing, or see information about the book, but I didn't want a visible topic in the TOC for that book. So I created topics for each book, and linked the book to those topics, but I didn't add those topics into the TOC. That seems to be working.

[MarinaMichaels]

Hey! I'm a Baby Propeller Head!

[RamonS]

They grow up so fast....