I will soon have several content folders full of imported HTML content that I need to organize into a menu structure based on conditions. I discovered what I thought was a brilliant way to do this using project merges in a master TOC. I would love to use the new frameless web help but since it clearly does not support project merges I need another way to do this if I am to make use of the frameless or skinless help.
The way the project works is there will be a directory full of HTML files pulled out of our live knowledge base.
The extraction process will apply condition codes to these HTML files
I create an import that pulls all of these files into Flare as topics and creates a TOC with all topics included. Let's call that Import.TOC
Lets say there are 10 topics, seven conditionalized as CHOCOLATE and three as VANILLA.
I need to produce an HTML5 help output that produces a menu like this:
Chocolate
   Topic 1
   Topic 2
   Topic 3
   Topic 4
   Topic 5
   Topic 6
   Topic 7
Vanilla
   Topic 8
   Topic 9
   Topic 10
Right now I have two extra targets that use Import.TOC. One builds only VANILLA topics and a second builds only CHOCOLATE. I get the example menu above by doing this in a third target:
Master.TOC
   CHOCOLATE.proj (merged project)
   VANILLA.proj (merged project)
Since I can't do that and use frameless help, is there another way to use the same import.TOC multiple times inside the same master.TOC but filter for different conditions at each node where import.toc exists?
I hope someone else has some Flare Voodoo up their sleeve.
Filter Topics By Condtion in a TOC reusing another TOC
Re: Filter Topics By Condtion in a TOC reusing another TOC
Hi there,
Important Note:
I haven't really had the chance to try out the top navigation skin yet, so what I am about to suggest is based solely on what I have read in the Flare help and What's New guide.
As project merging is not currently supported for the top navigation skin, you may need to go down the path of creating individual TOCs for the Chocolate and Vanilla sections, then adding these TOCs to your master TOC instead of the linked targets. Note that this will only work if the topics that appear in both locations (if any) do not contain any conditioning at the paragraph level. For example, if a single topic is shared between the Chocolate and Vanilla sections, but some of the paragraphs are tagged to only show in the Chocolate section, then this approach will not work. If the actual topic content is the same in both instances then you will be fine.
Important Note:
I haven't really had the chance to try out the top navigation skin yet, so what I am about to suggest is based solely on what I have read in the Flare help and What's New guide.
As project merging is not currently supported for the top navigation skin, you may need to go down the path of creating individual TOCs for the Chocolate and Vanilla sections, then adding these TOCs to your master TOC instead of the linked targets. Note that this will only work if the topics that appear in both locations (if any) do not contain any conditioning at the paragraph level. For example, if a single topic is shared between the Chocolate and Vanilla sections, but some of the paragraphs are tagged to only show in the Chocolate section, then this approach will not work. If the actual topic content is the same in both instances then you will be fine.
"In an ideal world, software should be simple, well designed, and completely intuitive to end users. In the real world, good documentation is king."
Re: Filter Topics By Condtion in a TOC reusing another TOC
Thanks for the suggestion. That would be the usual way to go in a small project, but the issue here is that unlike my example there will be hundreds of topics with about ten different possible conditions that are extracted periodically and reimported into Flare. It is unfortunately not feasible for me to do this manually, hence my filtering and merging scheme.