Problem with topic used multi times in toc - html5

[CMSimard]

I am using the latest version of RoboHelp in the new UI and I am working with a new help project.

I have a number of topics that appear in my table of contents more than once (e.g. one topic appears in the onboarding sequence of topics for two different procucts.

I have created onboarding "landing pages" with links to the topics. When the user clicks a link to a topic that appears in the toc more than once, the toc opens to the first instance of the topic in the toc.

Is there any way around this? Sometimes I want it to open the toc to the 2nd or 3rd instance of the topic in the toc.

This is a significant issue for my beta release today...it is new software and help designed to resolve usability issues with our old software. My onboarding landing pages need to be solid and behave like my toc!!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

When you talk of "onboarding landing pages" are you creating a kind of "browse sequence" (i.e. to accomplish this task, do this topic first, then this one, then this one, etc.?)

[CMSimard]

I have manually created a page with links to topics...

In screenshot, item 1, you go to the landing page and the toc is correct.

But...when you click the link, item 2 (red arrows), you are taken out of this book and into the first book where that topic appears (the book for the other product's onboarding sequence).

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Ok, that's what I suspected - whenever you need to "preserve" the same content in multiple locations, you need to use a snippet for the content and then create dummy blank topics using the snippet content in the "correct" spots for your TOC and "landing pages" - that way your "flow" is preserved and your user isn't bouncing all over the place.

[CMSimard]

Okay, thanks! That is significant rework on my project, ugh - lots of whole topics to be turned into snippets, which I have not worked with.

But it will need to be done. Lesson learned!

Can I assume that a dummy topic with a snippet will behave just like any other topic with respect to toc, nav sequence, links, master pages for PDF and HTML5 output, context senstive calls (ugh, I have to update that framwork with the software team to call the new dummy topics, I guess...) and interactions with the CSS and JSS within the HTML5 template?

[Peter Grainge]

It's either what Jeff has suggested or new topics with redirects in them so the same amount of work. I think the snippets is probably an easier solution and I only mention this for the sake of completeness.

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[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I had to learn this the hard way when I discovered my developers liked sticking the same program in multiple places within the software's menu structure with different names which led me to believe they were different instances, when they really were all the same program (cursed object-oriented programming!)

[CMSimard]

Thanks both of you! For now, I am going to rework my information architecture, implement some browse sequences, and beef up my product type filtering!

So, to confirm, if I create a rich snippet with paras, lists, tables, related topics links, and filters, I can then call them in dummy topics and they will behave like a topic?

About 1/2 my help system is re-used topics...this really is the RoboHelp way for content reuse?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Yup!

[CMSimard]

Thanks! I will try it and consider doing the fix right! Much appreciated.