Create TOC from Links viewer list?

This forum is for all Flare issues not related to any of the other categories.
Post Reply
richt
Propeller Head
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:38 am

Create TOC from Links viewer list?

Post by richt »

I've got a single topic file littered with cross-references. What I need to do is gather up all of the topics contained in those cross-references, and bundle them into a TOC (ideally as a sub-node under that parent topic), so that I can create an appendix chapter called References.

The Links Viewer is a great way to see a complete list of files referenced in that parent topic, but it is extremely cumbersome and error-prone to then find each file in the Content Explorer and drag it manually to a TOC file.

I tried using the Find and Replace search to grab every MadCap:xref, but that generates a big table of html that I'd have to export as a CSV and externally process with Excel or Notepad++ to grab the URLs. I could do something similar with the Find Elements viewer, but for some maddening reason I can only Find in (all open docs) or (whole project), which is useless if, heaven forbid, I'm working on another file at the same time.

Has anyone got any tips for this? Ideally I just want to drag the list of pages from the Link Viewer into a TOC, but that's not possible.
Nita Beck
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 3667
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:57 am
Location: Pittsford, NY

Re: Create TOC from Links viewer list?

Post by Nita Beck »

Sorry that I have no solution, but no, AFAIK, there's no auto-magical way for Flare to build a TOC based on the .htm files that are linked to the file you have open and whose links you are viewing.
Nita
Image
RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
richt
Propeller Head
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:38 am

Re: Create TOC from Links viewer list?

Post by richt »

I'm wondering if there's a way to achieve it via the available proxies. There's a List-of proxy available which looks like it would do exactly what I need it to (generate a list of in-page items), but it's not possible to select any MadCap items... or is there?
jjw
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 133
Joined: Thu May 08, 2014 4:18 pm
Location: Melbourne

Re: Create TOC from Links viewer list?

Post by jjw »

If you don't mind writing a SQL query then for grabbing the urls you could use the Outgoing Link table in the Analyser database. The "Link" column has the link url in the correct format for a toc entry (that is, relative to the base folder for the project) and you can filter by FileID (to specify the topic) and LinkTag.
Nita Beck
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 3667
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:57 am
Location: Pittsford, NY

Re: Create TOC from Links viewer list?

Post by Nita Beck »

I'm pretty sure the List-Of proxy is for generating a list of things like figure titles or table titles in the generated table of contents in print output.
Nita
Image
RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
richt
Propeller Head
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:38 am

Re: Create TOC from Links viewer list?

Post by richt »

Yes, but that means a proxy exists that is able to scan through a topic and list all elements of a single type (div, a, etc) and generate a list of those items. I need precisely that feature, but for generating a list of xrefs.
Post Reply