Editing topic titles

[maimonides]

In my project, I have a folder of 12 topics, the title of each one ending in the same word. I want to remove the last word from the title of each topic; however, many other topics in other folders are linked to these topics. Is there a clean way to do this without breaking the links or having to fiddle with them?

...Okay, I just did a test run, renamed a topic in the Content Explorer, was asked whether I wanted to update the links and said yes. That part is fine, but to change the titles within the topics themselves so they match the titles in the Content Explorer, do I need to open each topic and change the title manually?

[LTinker68]

Just to clarify. When you say you want to change the title, are you talking about the info in the <title> tag, or the first heading of the topic? The <title> tags are only added and populated if you typed a title in the topic's Properties screen. If you left that field blank, then it uses the first heading in the topic as the "title" for things like searching, the index, etc. So which are you talking about?

[maimonides]

I didn't type titles in the Properties screen, so I guess I mean the first heading.

[Andrew]

...Okay, I just did a test run, renamed a topic in the Content Explorer, was asked whether I wanted to update the links and said yes. That part is fine, but to change the titles within the topics themselves so they match the titles in the Content Explorer, do I need to open each topic and change the title manually?

The file name is only linked to something in the topic itself when you first create the topic. After that, you can change the title (h1) and the file name won't change, or you can change the file name and the title (h1) won't change.

The simplest solution is to open each topic and change the title.

[maimonides]

Got it. Thanks.

[LTinker68]

Ok. If you change a file name, you'll be asked if you want to update the links (click Yes). That file name is not used for anything related to the "title" of the topic unless the topic doesn't have a heading in it. The first heading in the topic will be the default info displayed for that topic in search results, cross-references, the index, etc.

The TOC is slightly different. If you drag a topic into the TOC, then the first heading is used as the text for the TOC entry; however, after that first drag, there is no symbiotic relationship between the TOC entry and the topic's heading. You can change the TOC entry to be a shortened form of that heading or something else entirely. Likewise, if you change the text of the heading in the topic, the TOC entry will not be changed -- it will remain with whatever text it was last set to. In the situation where the heading and TOC don't match, the heading is used for search results, cross-references, the index, etc., and the TOC entry is used in the TOC, mini-TOC (I think), and breadcrumbs. I can't remember what the other help controls use, but I think it's the heading, not the TOC text.

So, if you have the same word at the end of the headings, you can use find-and-replace to search for word</h1> and replace it with </h1> (make sure you have find in source code enabled). If you want the word gone from the TOC, then you might have to manually change the entries. I can't remember if Flare's find-and-replace includes the TOC file as something to be searched in. Or, you could open the TOC file in the Internal Text Editor and do the find-and-replace that way. I think that will work. I'd make a backup of the project or at least a backup of the TOC file before trying it, though.

EDIT: I started typing my post then got side-tracked then finally submitted it, which is why it looks like I repeated some of what Andrew said.