Group topics in a single HTML page

[Wanaka]

Hi every one,

I searched in this forum but didn't find the answer... So sorry in advance if I didn't search well...
Actually most of my Outputs are PDF Outputs, but I'd like to export one project in HTML...
For my HTML Output, I want to keep the same TOC...
My problem is that I can't create a single HTPL page with multiple topics...

Example:
_ Chapter A
- Topic A.1
- Topic A.2
- Topic A.3
_ Chapter B
- Topic B.1
- Topic B.2
In chapter A, Topics A.1~3 create a uniform chapter, but I divided in different topics as some topics are uses in other TOCs, some not.
Conclusion: I need to keep multiple topics, and it works well for PDF Outputs...

But I'd like to group Topics A.1~3 in a single HTML page.
Does someone know a way to do that? Actually, I have a web page for each topics, and some of them are just a sentence...

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

[ChoccieMuffin]

In brief, snippets are your answer.

[Wanaka]

Hello ChoccieMuffin,
Thanks for your comments, and sorry for my late reply, I was on holiday... :lol :
I use a lot of snippets, but in my case it's not the best solution...
I have hundreds of topics in my TOC, and most of my topics already use snippets...
Creating snippets based on my topics would require a lot of work.

Is there a way to tell Flare to group all the topics into a single web pages, until a page break ?

Thanks in advance for your advices!

[Wanaka]

Hello everyone,
I don't have any feedback, so please tell me if my question isn't clear
I'm a bit worried that it won't be possible to create a page break for my HTML output...
If not, do you know of any software/script that would be able to do this, once the HTML output has been generated?
Have a nice day!

[robdocsmith]

I've been watching this topic hoping someone would pipe up and have an automatic solution for you (and me!). I'm sorry to say I think you are going to be disappointed. I don't know of an automatic or easy way to do what you want. It's certainly a frustration when you go from outputting to PDF to outputting online - one I face too. It comes down to one of scale, how big each topic is, and how you first imagined the document to be output.

If you created your project thinking it was only going to be PDF, you may have created lots of small topics, one per heading. The size of each topic makes it easy to edit and control and you don't have to worry about length because when output they all run together into one big document. However if you have to turn it into an online document later on, you'll find the issue of tiny topics, or topics with only a heading, and data chunking not optimised for online delivery.

If you created your project starting from the premise it would be online first and foremost you'd have chunked information so each file represented a chunk of data to be seen on screen at one time. Outputting to PDF later is easy because all the topics flow together into one long stream.

The only thing I can see to do is to change your mindset and reimagine your project from the viewpoint of online, then rework topics to suit that delivery. This might mean turning chunks of topic text into snippets, clumping several topics together into one file, writing intro text where it didn't exist before so you don't have empty topics that contain just a heading. For PDF some small topics are unavoidable if you need to use page layout breaks or page/chapter/section numbering changes. You may find you need to create topics that are specific to online or PDF only that only hold snippets in order to achieve the flow you desire in both outputs.

Having gone through the exercise before it is ultimately a good experience that benefits both forms of output. The document flows better as PDF and online. You'll write extra bits of information to link topics and create more intra-document links and groupings of related topics. But it is a pain to do.

Rob

[Wanaka]

Hi Robdocsmith,

Thanks for your feedback!
It's true that your feedback is exactly what I thought/feared...
So I'm going to continue with PDF targets, which is what I've been asking for, but I'll avoid to go further with an HTML output for the moment...

But what a shame Madcap didn't integrate this feature!

Many thanks for your feedback!

[robdocsmith]

It would be handy to have some sort of feature to make it easy to group topics, but I suspect it would be almost impossible to implement. Even with some sort of global setting to "group topics at H3 level" or similar, you'd still end up with some topics that are too small (and probably some that are too big. Inevitably the issues stem from different writing styles and you are forced to make compromises. As Chocciemuffin said, using snippets heavily will help avoid rewriting. I use empty topics that have specific output conditions that contain only snippets in places where I have different outputs.

[Wanaka]

Yes, I agree it would be a handy tool, but I also agree it wouldn't solve all problems....
I though to the proposal of Chocciemuffin and using snippet... It's not the way I wanted to work at the beginning, but it's right it would be the most efficient way now I have many small topics...
I give me some time to think to my problem, but it's certainly the way I'll solve it!

Thanks to both of you for your support!