MadCap Software Forums

I'm working on a very large restructuring project. I have over 200 folders, each containing anywhere from 10-50 topics. Within each folder, I want to combine the 10-50 topics into a single topic. Is there any way to do this?

I found an old reference here http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... &sk=t&sd=a but didn't see anything more recent.

What I'd like to be able to do is select multiple topics and have the option to "Merge Topics". Wishful thinking?

AFAIK, there is still no such "Merge Topics" feature in Flare. I think the workarounds (and limitations) discussed in the old forum post you reference are still applicable.

This is too bad--I was looking for a similar feature. Only my request is even more ambitious: author a slew of topics separately, but have them merged into one SUPER TOPIC when compiled as a WebHelp.

We have this reference topic that describes the variables in our system. Our support and training staff love the convenience of having all the variables in one topic--they can simply open the topic and then do a search. But the maintenance of this is becoming a chore: the topic is now 37 pages long in print preview! When I tried breaking the topic up, I got howls of protest that it was much harder for them to search. (Never mind that WebHelp has a "Search" feature, and you can search in the PDF version of our help.)

Centauri27 wrote:We have this reference topic that describes the variables in our system. Our support and training staff love the convenience of having all the variables in one topic--they can simply open the topic and then do a search. But the maintenance of this is becoming a chore: the topic is now 37 pages long in print preview! When I tried breaking the topic up, I got howls of protest that it was much harder for them to search. (Never mind that WebHelp has a "Search" feature, and you can search in the PDF version of our help.)

Why not use snippets? You can have a slew of snippet files that are then placed in one topic. You wouldn't ever have to edit the topic directly except to insert a new snippet when needed. You'd just edit the snippets. That would seem to get you the authoring convenience you seek.

Out of the box thought for this..

Create a Target and TOC for XHTML Book and drop your topics in the TOC in the order you want them.
Build the output and open the output folder.
Notice, there is a single HTML page.
Maybe link to this page or add this page using an import or something along those lines.

Has Flare done anything with this? I'm using Flare 2017 and have a single HTML page with multiple headings in it. I'm interested in moving it to HTML5 TopNav with a side menu but don't like the idea of creating a manual TOC to include all of the sub-headings (28 sub-headings for one of the pages and have about 30 different pages I need to do this with). The output MUST be a single HTML page (to work with legacy online help settings and development file structure).

Rather than create manual TOCs I would rather have multiple topic files that I can then drag into a TOC and create a single-page output to HTML5 TopNav (with side menu). (And, of course, then be able to single-source topics that duplicate across different pages).

Thanks!

Gary

You could write a post-build event that replaces a placeholder (eg. an xref to the topic) with the topic content.
My xrefs have the format "{path}", and I run a post-build XSLT transformation that takes the document at this path and places it into a dropdown menu, replacing the xref element. This could easily be configured to put the linked topics on the page directly.

Of course, setting up the post-build event could be tricky depending on where/how you run the build, but I find it easier to configure a list of cross-references than a huge topic with many many snippets and dropdowns!

Thanks KayJay. Unfortunately that's a bit above my technical skills .

RecPerch wrote:Has Flare done anything with this? I'm using Flare 2017 and have a single HTML page with multiple headings in it. I'm interested in moving it to HTML5 TopNav with a side menu but don't like the idea of creating a manual TOC to include all of the sub-headings (28 sub-headings for one of the pages and have about 30 different pages I need to do this with). The output MUST be a single HTML page (to work with legacy online help settings and development file structure).

Rather than create manual TOCs I would rather have multiple topic files that I can then drag into a TOC and create a single-page output to HTML5 TopNav (with side menu). (And, of course, then be able to single-source topics that duplicate across different pages).

Thanks!

Gary

If your page uses headings, yes you can build a TOC automatically that creates bookmarks for all of the subheadings. In the TOC, add the page for the top level, then go to its properties, and in Auto-Generate section choose compute sub-entries. This will pull the headings out to the depth you specify.
I think it works with most outputs, unfortunately it doesn't show up in the actual editor inside the project, so it doesn't help to jump to parts of long pages while editing.

I have had more trouble with this as a subset TOC using a right side menu....but I think it is supposed to work with either a mini-toc proxy or possibly a list-of proxy (though this always seems to take all the headings in the entire project).