Automatic TOC Syncing Not Working

[apinson]

Hello Madcappers,

Has anyone encountered problems with the automatically sync option not working?
I have it enabled for the skin, but no syncing occurs.
This happens with topics liked from external sources AND to topics linked within the file and topics themselves.

Anyone know how I can get this to work or why it's not working as it once did?
The auto-sync feature is pretty high on my "need to have" list for my authoring tool, as most of my users enter from an external link.
As it is, they are being stranded in the middle of my file without any "you are here" to guide them.

Thanks in advance for your time!

[forfear]

is it possible some topics have been duplicated in other books or chapters in the toc. so the auto sync stops working then.

[apinson]

is it possible some topics have been duplicated in other books or chapters in the toc. so the auto sync stops working then.

Thanks for the idea, but no, that's not it. Only a couple of my topics are duplicated in the TOC.

Anyone else?

[RamonS]

Thanks for the idea, but no, that's not it. Only a couple of my topics are duplicated in the TOC.

That alone will already do it. Flare or better to say the ECMAScript in the WebHelp does not know which instance of the entry in the ToC is meant when that particular topic is selected. What you should do is craft a snippet from the topic that is linked multiple times in the ToC, then create multiple topics that consist only of the snippet. That way WebHelp thinks it is different topics (in fact it will be separate filesin the output), but you still have only one place to make any changes.

[apinson]

Thanks for the idea, but no, that's not it. Only a couple of my topics are duplicated in the TOC.

That alone will already do it. Flare or better to say the ECMAScript in the WebHelp does not know which instance of the entry in the ToC is meant when that particular topic is selected. What you should do is craft a snippet from the topic that is linked multiple times in the ToC, then create multiple topics that consist only of the snippet. That way WebHelp thinks it is different topics (in fact it will be separate filesin the output), but you still have only one place to make any changes.

Thanks Ramon for the tip, if I need that in the future I'll use it!

For now I'm just trying to figure out how to sync my TOC.

I'd appreciate any help from the support folks browsing this forum. Has anyone else reported a non-syncing TOC?

[KevinDAmery]

That's just it: what RamonS told you is the solution. TOC syncing does not support having the same topic file appearing multple times in the TOC, and that is the cause of the problems you're having. Remove the duplicates and it will work.

Building topics using snippets as described is a way of having multiple topics that say the same thing without having to maintain the same content in multiple locations.

[apinson]

That's just it: what RamonS told you is the solution. TOC syncing does not support having the same topic file appearing multple times in the TOC, and that is the cause of the problems you're having. Remove the duplicates and it will work.

Building topics using snippets as described is a way of having multiple topics that say the same thing without having to maintain the same content in multiple locations.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding. Are you saying that the auto-sync feature will not work at all if even just one of your TOC entries is a duplicate?

[KevinDAmery]

That's just it: what RamonS told you is the solution. TOC syncing does not support having the same topic file appearing multple times in the TOC, and that is the cause of the problems you're having. Remove the duplicates and it will work.

Building topics using snippets as described is a way of having multiple topics that say the same thing without having to maintain the same content in multiple locations.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding. Are you saying that the auto-sync feature will not work at all if even just one of your TOC entries is a duplicate?

Exactly. Each entry has to be unique.

[LTinker68]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding. Are you saying that the auto-sync feature will not work at all if even just one of your TOC entries is a duplicate?

It's not that it won't work at all -- it's that it will appear to not work if you click on a topic that has been duplicated, because it will automatically go to the first instance of that topic in the TOC, even if that's not the location in the TOC where you clicked (if that makes sense). If you click on a topic that hasn't been duplicated, then the TOC will sync (assuming that you enabled that feature) because it only finds one instance of that topic.

Are you saying the TOC isn't syncing at all, regardless if the topic was unique or duplicated, or is it only with the duplicate topics that it seems not to work? If it's the former, then something else is wrong. If it's the latter, then you have to go with the solution RamonS mentioned.

[NorthEast]

I don't think it is due to having duplicate topics. If you open a topic that is duplicated, the auto-sync will still highlight one of entries for that topic in the TOC - and in your project, the auto-sync has stopped working altogether.

If it were me, I'd double-check my skin settings again, and then make a new test skin in my project and see if that works - if not, I'd contact support.

[apinson]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding. Are you saying that the auto-sync feature will not work at all if even just one of your TOC entries is a duplicate?

It's not that it won't work at all -- it's that it will appear to not work if you click on a topic that has been duplicated, because it will automatically go to the first instance of that topic in the TOC, even if that's not the location in the TOC where you clicked (if that makes sense). If you click on a topic that hasn't been duplicated, then the TOC will sync (assuming that you enabled that feature) because it only finds one instance of that topic.

Are you saying the TOC isn't syncing at all, regardless if the topic was unique or duplicated, or is it only with the duplicate topics that it seems not to work? If it's the former, then something else is wrong. If it's the latter, then you have to go with the solution RamonS mentioned.

Yes, the whole TOC isn't syncing. I'll remove duplicated entries, rebuild the skin, etc. and try it again. If that doesn't work I'll contact support. Thanks!