Top Nav - topics not included in the TOC

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:42 am

Hello! I'm back...

I recently had a question about setting hyperlinks in the menu for Top Nav HTML5 output, which Dave Lee was very kind to help me with. Essentially, I needed my menu to be all hyperlinks, and no direct links to documentation content.

This presented the issue of how to include topics in the output when they're not specified in the TOC.

So initially I thought I might just create a page ("OnlineHelpPage.htm") that included a menu proxy linked to the TOC that does contain all the documentation content I need on the site. While that does work, the topics don't appear on the "OtherTopics" master page that would normally include the mini-TOC and breadcrumbs.

By comparison, if I had included the documentation as part of the Top Nav menu/TOC, when opened they would appear correctly with a mini-TOC and breadcrumbs. Otherwise, even if I set the master page in the topic properties, I don't get the desired results--the navigation (breadcrumbs and mini-TOC) disappear. What is it about the menu that opens topics in a different master page?

I wondered if maybe I'm experiencing similar problems as identified in this thread.

Here is the old tri-pane output that I'm trying to update to Top Nav in Flare 12: LINK
As you can see, we've got upwards of 2,000 topics, broken into 33 sections, and it's all context-sensitive.

Does anyone have any solutions or suggestions? I need every topic to have breadcrumbs and a mini-TOC, but not be included in the Top Nav menu (obviously, 30+ menu links isn't happening)... And ideally, I wouldn't have to modify 2,000+ topics.....

Thank you for your time!!

kwag_myers · Post by **kwag_myers** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 5:21 am

Titus wrote:What is it about the menu that opens topics in a different master page?

I don't think that's how it works. If you use the HTML tag to set the master page as a style (instructions), it should work.

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 9:09 am

kwag_myers wrote:I don't think that's how it works. If you use the HTML tag to set the master page as a style (instructions), it should work.

Thanks for the suggestion kwag_myers. Unfortunately, this isn't working for me. When I inspect the elements in the output (in Chrome and Firefox) it says "mc-master-page is an unknown property" and strikes it out...

Edit: Following up on this, it doesn't seem to matter that 'mc-master-page' is an unknown property, because I was able to set the master page to "HomePage.flmsp" and the footer (that's part of HomePage.flmsp) appeared on my topics, but I want the master page to be "OtherTopics.flmsp", if I'm understanding things correctly. And that doesn't appear to be working... Or maybe it is, but the breadcrumbs and menu proxy aren't showing up?

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:48 am

I'm starting to think this can't be done because there is no TOC for the topics (although I am using a menu proxy with a TOC as part of a landing page for online help)...

kwag_myers · Post by **kwag_myers** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:59 am

Titus wrote:When I inspect the elements in the output (in Chrome and Firefox) it says "mc-master-page is an unknown property" and strikes it out...

Any style or style property with the mc prefix is going to show as an unknown property in a browser.

Edit: Following up on this, it doesn't seem to matter that 'mc-master-page' is an unknown property, because I was able to set the master page to "HomePage.flmsp" and the footer (that's part of HomePage.flmsp) appeared on my topics, but I want the master page to be "OtherTopics.flmsp", if I'm understanding things correctly. And that doesn't appear to be working... Or maybe it is, but the breadcrumbs and menu proxy aren't showing up?

I'd have to evaluate the code of the OtherTopics.flmsp. Maybe this will help - here's a template of a master page i use with top nav containing a search bar and two links with the remaining content in a side menu. Let's see if we can get the proxies to show, then deal with positioning in the CSS:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html>
    <head>
        <link href="../TableStyles/homeftr.css" rel="stylesheet" MadCap:stylesheetType="table" />
        <link rel="shortcut icon" href="https://../assets/img/favicon.ico" />
    </head>
    <body class="home">
        <div class="topicHdBg">
		<!--set logo as link to home page-->
		<a href="../../home.htm" title="Click to view the Home page." alt="Click to view the Home page."><img src="../Images/logo.png" class="bluelogo" title="Click to view the Home page." alt="company logo" /></a>
		<!--toolbar nav-->
            <ul class="topNav">
                <li><MadCap:searchBarProxy data-mc-skin="/Project/Skins/navSkinTopic.flskn" />
                </li>
                <li><a href="../../guides.htm">Guides</a>
                </li>
                <li><a href="../../vids.htm">Help Videos</a>
                </li>
            </ul>
        </div>
		<!--breadcrumb-->
        <ul class="breadcrumb">
            <li><a href="../../home.htm" class="MCBreadcrumbsLink">Home</a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <MadCap:breadcrumbsProxy />
            </li>
        </ul>
		<!--side nav-->
        <div class="sideContent">
            <MadCap:menuProxy mc-linked-toc="/Project/TOCs/Master.fltoc" style="mc-toc-depth: -1;mc-context-sensitive: False;mc-include-parent: False;mc-include-siblings: False;mc-include-children: False;" data-mc-skin="/Project/Skins/MenuSkin.flskn" />
        </div>
		<!--body proxy-->
        <div class="content">
            <MadCap:bodyProxy />
        </div>
		<!--footer-->
        <div class="homeftr">
		....
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

One question I have: you do have a Master TOC with all the topics, correct?

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:12 am

One question I have: you do have a Master TOC with all the topics, correct?

I do... though it doesn't seem to be making a difference.

Here's my master page for OtherTopics.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd" MadCap:lastBlockDepth="6" MadCap:lastHeight="135" MadCap:lastWidth="1308">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8" />
        <meta name="description" content="" />
        <meta name="author" content="" /><title></title>
    </head>
    <body>
         <div class="content">
            <div id="contentBody">
                <div class="row collapse">
                    <div class="sideContent">
                        <MadCap:menuProxy style="mc-toc-depth: 3;mc-context-sensitive: True;mc-include-parent: True;mc-include-siblings: True;mc-include-children: True;" data-mc-skin="/Project/Skins/Components/SideMenu.flskn" />
                    </div>
                    <MadCap:searchBarProxy data-mc-skin="/Project/Skins/Components/TopicsSearchBar.flskn" />
                    <MadCap:breadcrumbsProxy />
                    <MadCap:bodyProxy /> </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

I have to admit, I've pretty much given up on this. I decided to hack and slash my way around the issue. I've created a div container for the top menu hyperlinks and I'm doing funky things with it to make it a reasonable menu. I set the 'TOC' menu to not display on browsers >1279px. In this way, the 'hamburger' menu contains links to the handbook documentation, while the div (top menu) container appears on the Home page as well on the OtherTopics master page. So I do always have a menu of hyperlinks, while the documentation still gets the correct master page applied (with breadcrumbs and mini-TOC).

This is now my code for the OtherTopics.flmsp:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd" MadCap:lastBlockDepth="6" MadCap:lastHeight="135" MadCap:lastWidth="1308">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8" />
        <meta name="description" content="" />
        <meta name="author" content="" /><title></title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="TopMenu">
            <p class="Menu"><a href="../../FortiOS/fortiOS-HTML5-54-v2/Home.htm" class="Menu">HOME (BETA)</a>
            </p>
            <p class="Menu"><a href="http://cookbook.fortinet.com/" class="Menu" target="_blank">COOKBOOK</a>
            </p>
            <p class="Menu"><a href="http://video.fortinet.com/" class="Menu" target="_blank">VIDEOS</a>
            </p>
            <p class="Menu"><a href="http://www.fortiguard.com/" class="Menu" target="_blank">FORTIGUARD</a>
            </p>
            <p class="Menu"><a href="http://fuse.fortinet.com/" class="Menu" target="_blank">FUSE</a>
            </p>
            <p class="Menu"><a href="http://kb.fortinet.com/" class="Menu" target="_blank">KB</a>
            </p>
            <p class="Menu"><a href="http://support.fortinet.com/" class="Menu" target="_blank">SUPPORT</a>
            </p>
        </div>
        <div class="content">
            <div id="contentBody">
                <div class="row collapse">
                    <div class="sideContent">
                        <MadCap:menuProxy style="mc-toc-depth: 3;mc-context-sensitive: True;mc-include-parent: True;mc-include-siblings: True;mc-include-children: True;" data-mc-skin="/Project/Skins/Components/SideMenu.flskn" />
                    </div>
                    <MadCap:searchBarProxy data-mc-skin="/Project/Skins/Components/TopicsSearchBar.flskn" />
                    <MadCap:breadcrumbsProxy />
                    <MadCap:bodyProxy /> </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

I also have to admit, it's not very elegant, and I have to create different media classes for div.TopMenu and p.Menu to make it somewhat responsive.

My hiccup now is I would like the hamburger menu to appear on the Home page. Having some difficulty with this, but it's not a deal breaker... if you have any comments on this and/or my new approach, I'd love to hear them!

Thank you so much for your help!

kwag_myers · Post by **kwag_myers** » Thu Apr 28, 2016 7:54 am

I tried your code and it worked, i.e., all the proxies showed up. You may systematically noting out (/*hide*/) each style in the CSS. I've had it happen where I had an unsupported property in the CSS and the browser would stop rendering when it got to that style.

I'm afraid I can't help you with the hamburger menu. I know that it automatically displays when the browser width is reduced. But you're using a list instead of a menu proxy.

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Thu Apr 28, 2016 1:51 pm

Thanks again kwag_myer!

I think I've made progress and everything is coming together nicely now. I'll post a link to the site when it's "done".

For the hamburger menu to appear, I just decided to change my default 'tablet' size so it accommodates up to 1600px screens.

Cheers!

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Wed Jun 08, 2016 3:23 pm

Here's our new online help, as promised. I wouldn't say it's perfect, or even complete.. and the code is a mess, but nevertheless!

http://help.fortinet.com/fos50hlp/54/index.htm

Thanks for all your help!

wclass · Post by **wclass** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 12:23 am

Titus wrote:Here's our new online help, as promised. ...

Hey - thanks for sharing this - I really like the look of your help. Gives the rest of us some ideas to play around with.

Titus · Post by **Titus** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:06 am

wclass wrote:
Titus wrote:Here's our new online help, as promised. ...
Hey - thanks for sharing this - I really like the look of your help. Gives the rest of us some ideas to play around with.

Thanks! If you have any questions for us, don't hesitate to get in touch!

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