Breadcrumb not using h1

[Carlsen]

Hi All,

I'm using Flare 11, generating TriPane HTML5 output, and using breadcrumbs. The issue I'm having is that in topics that have drop-downs, the breadcrumb is using the drop-down instead of the topic's h1. Let me explain further...

My topics are structured in the following way. We have the h1 for the topic heading, then one or more drop-down sections within the topic. In the TOC we link directly to the topic, but we also list the drop-downs and link to a bookmark within the drop-down head. This works fine, you click the drop-down link in the TOC, and it takes you to the topic, opens up the drop-down, and all is well. But the breadcrumb trail always shows the first drop-down's label instead of the h1.

Say for example we have a folder called Widgets, and within that we have a topic called Working with Users, and within that topic we have drop-downs for Adding Users, Updating Users, and Deleting Users, in that order. I list all in the TOC, so it has the Widgets folder, within that is the Working with Users folder, and within that are links to the drop-down bookmarks. So for whichever one of the Working with Users items in the TOC is clicked, one would expect the breadcrumb to be: Widgets > Working with Users. But instead it's Widgets > Adding Users. Always.

I've traced this to the TOC. When you right click on the Adding Users entry and choose Properties, on the General tab there is a field called Label. It is this label that Flare is using in the breadcrumb. So worst case, I can change this label to be what I want.

But what I don't understand is why Flare is not picking up the h1 in the Working with Users topic for the breadcrumb. Has anyone else ever seen this problem? Can anyone explain Flare's behavior? Seems like a bug to me.

[kwag_myers]

It's not a bug. The breadcrumb proxy uses the TOC Label, not the topic H1 (Flare Help). The bottom line is, if it's in the TOC, it's going to be in the breadcrumb.

Using your example, you can set the mc-breadcrumbs-count property of the MadCap|breadcrumbsProxy style to 2 in the Stylesheet. However, this is a global setting, so you will only show two levels in the breadcrumb throughout the project. If you change the Label property, the TOC will look like this (using periods to show indentation):

Widgets
...Working with Users
......Working with Users (pointing to Adding Users)
......Working with Users (pointing to Updating Users)
......Working with Users (pointing to Deleting Users)

[Carlsen]

Thanks for the reply. However, I do suspect there is a bug here. I've confirmed through experimentation that Flare does use the TOC Label in the breadcrumb. But the problem is that it always shows the first drop-down's label in the breadcrumb, regardless of which one I've clicked on in the TOC. So given the following TOC structure:

Widgets
...Working with Users
......Adding Users (this points to a bookmarked drop-down in the Working with Users topic)
......Updating Users (this points to a bookmarked drop-down in the Working with Users topic)
......Deleting Users (this points to a bookmarked drop-down in the Working with Users topic)

No matter whether I click Working with Users, Adding Users, Updating Users, or Deleting Users, the breadcrumb always says: Widgets > Adding Users. I would expect it to say Widgets > Working with Users instead if there wasn't a bug, which seems like what the expected behavior would be to me, but please correct me if that's not what someone else would expect.

I don't see a workaround for this at the moment, other than to not use breadcrumbs.

[KCinColorado]

This is a known bug, but the more bug reports that are logged, the better chance of it getting fixed - so please submit a bug report. I was on the phone with MadCap support earlier this week, and during the remote session, they showed me (briefly) how to add breadcrumbs to my project. Indented books in the TOC did not appear in the breadcrumb trail. The support person said this was a bug, and the workaround was to un-link those books in the TOC. But that sort of defeats the purpose of the breadcrumbs, doesn't it? (The user can't click to go back to the higher-level topic.) I hope they fix this soon...

[NorthEast]

Breadcrumbs should work fine, provided you only have a single entry in the TOC for each topic.

It won't work if you have multiple links to the same topic, e.g. multiple links to bookmarks within the topic.
Breadcrumbs are just static links added at build time, so a single topic can only have a single breadcrumb path.

[RamonS]

Breadcrumbs should work fine, provided you only have a single entry in the TOC for each topic.

It won't work if you have multiple links to the same topic, e.g. multiple links to bookmarks within the topic.
Breadcrumbs are just static links added at build time, so a single topic can only have a single breadcrumb path.

The common workaround here is to have multiple topics that contain nothing else than a snippet that has the topic content. That way Flare treats each topic as a separate topic but you can still maintain the content in one place.

[NorthEast]

The common workaround here is to have multiple topics that contain nothing else than a snippet that has the topic content. That way Flare treats each topic as a separate topic but you can still maintain the content in one place.

It's a workaround if you want multiple instances of the same topic, but that's not what Carlsen was trying to do - he wanted several TOC links to bookmarks inside the same topic, and breadcrumbs will never work for that.

[RamonS]

Maybe I should read the entire thread the next time.