Change title above TOC, but keep on the Accordian button?

[beagley]

I want to change the title above the table of contents to "The Title of My Help System",
and I know I can do that in the style stuff in the skin. (It is hard to find, but I know it is in there.)

However, I'd like to keep the accordian BUTTON, the one they'll click to get back to the table of contents, as "TOC".

Unfortunately, it looks like right now if I change one, they both change.

Anyway to make that top title a static text?

Alternative: Anyone want to share the best way of putting "The Title of My Help System" into the top bar?

-d

[bobmoon]

You control what label is assigned to each accordion item in the skin, as you mentioned. That label is changed as you open different accordion items, and I've never heard of any way to break that link. If it were possible to hack that in the page, would you be happy with that label no longer changing when you open the Search or Index accordion?

To change the label for the TOC, do this:
1. In the Project Organizer, open your skin (under the Skins folder).
2. In the Skin Editor, click on the Styles tab.
3. Expand AccordionItem and click TOC.
4. In the Properties section, expand Basic and enter "The Title of My Help System" in the Label field.

Bob

[beagley]

Bob,
Thank you for pointing directly to the label control for me, I do often have trouble finding it.

Yes. I would be fine with breaking that link, and having the title above the TOC always just show the title of my help system.

I'm kind of wondering what other folks do, though, when they want to put text into that menu bar.

A long while back, I figured out how to change the logo (in the far right-corner), but I recall that being really difficult too, as the bar has a gradient and is of a certain size, etc.

-d

[bobmoon]

I'm sure that it is possible to hack the contents of that pane so that it no longer is updated each time you click an accordion. All the elements in the web help UI come from one of the scripts or XML files that define the skin. I looked in there a little, but it is very complicated. I know that some of the skin customizations others have found are re-generated each time you compile, so you might have to repeat the hack after each compile.

I guess you'd like to use that area of the web help toolbar for a different purpose than MadCap designed it. The title bar of the browser window is where they put the project title. That area of the web help toolbar indicates the selected accordion name.

Are you displaying your help in such a way that the browser window title isn't effective for you? Hopefully someone else has poked around enough to find it.

Bob

[beagley]

Yes, the problem with the browser window is that it is locally dependent. Font, size, impact, etc. all gets set by the browser and the operating system.

We have users on various Linux distributions, using OSX, using Windows XP, Vista, etc. I want to make a nice, consistent title where I set a font family and can have some reliability on what the user sees when the help window pops open.

I also want to put our company's support e-mail address and phone number in that bar, also. I've removed all the buttons, right now it just shows the title of the currently selected accordian item and the logo at the right.

I guess I'll float around and see what other Web Help folk are doing.

[navoff]

A long while back, I figured out how to change the logo (in the far right-corner), but I recall that being really difficult too, as the bar has a gradient and is of a certain size, etc.

The easiest way to deal with the gradient background of the toolbar is to make your image a gif with a transparent background. I was fortunate in that the source for my image was originally designed as a vector graphic. It made it easy to save it out as different sizes and test which one worked best. In my case, that turned out to be an image that was 200px x 20px. Of course, depending on the dimensions of your graphic, yours will probably be a little different.

I'd also recommend that when working on the styles of elements in the skin that you set the Show option to Property Groups rather than Alphabetical List. There are a lot of options in the Alphabetical list that won't apply to an element.