RH2019 classic : adding properties to a topic and use these in another topic

[Olivier Toebosch]

Hello, I use RH 2019 classic to generate chm help files and release notes.

I would like to know how to adress next need.

We compile small modification that are published via build (kind of release note, but more elaborated) and once a year a major release. The major release will contain succesive new topics from prevouis builds.

For a new build with a small set of changes, it is ok to have the topics uncategorized, but for the major release we want those topics to be organised in chapters, groups  or something like that. Those chapters are know at the creation of the topic.

We create the topic via Project manager and a toc via TOC view. Ideally, I would like to add a kind of metadata to the topic, that will contain a field for build number and a field for a functiongroup (eg sales, warehouse, etc) or category. Is there a mechanism that would create an overview of selected topics and drop them in a new page (a toc, but then in a topic), where the metadata is shown too? Ideally it should be grouped by, but I would already be happy with what's here below

eg.

what's new

sales : new topic 1 title,( new topic content, optionnaly)

sales : new topic 2 title, new topic content, optionnaly)

warehouse: new topic 3 title, new topic content, optionnaly)

purchase : new topic 4 title, new topic content, optionnaly)

sales, warehouse and purchase would be metadata for the respective topics.

I think about metadata or tags, but i don't care if it is metadata or another solution.

I would like to store information with a topic, that can be retrieved and shown automatically on generated page, under the aspect of a 'welcome' and a toc.

If this would be a solution, I plan to migrate to RH2020 too, but only if there is a clear advantage.

any suggestions?

thx

Olivier

[Peter Grainge]

Am I reading this right? You want to add some metadata to a topic and then be able to view which topics have that metadata.

Applying a unique tag would enable you to view which topics have that tag applied by going to the Condition Tags report. You would then be able to click the topic so that it opens. The TOC side would be a manual task.

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Amebr]

I was going to suggest a nifty semi-automated "changed topics" method that @Captiv8r came up with many years ago using See Also lists. But reading Peter's Robohelp 2020 tour it looks like the method is no longer possible because the implementation has completely changed. I'll list the details and perhaps Peter can tell me I'm wrong, because the method was very cool.

You used to be able to associate a keyword with each See Also placeholder. What you'd do is have a "changed topics" topic in your project. As you updated topics you'd add the version number as a see also keyword to the topic. Before you released, you'd update your "changed topics" topic with a new heading (probably the version number) then insert a see also placeholder using the version number see also keyword. Then all the topics with that keyword would be listed under that heading.

(At least, I think that's how it worked. Captiv8r's website is no longer up, and the Wayback Machine is giving me a 503 error for all the saved pages i've tried to access, so I can't find the full instructions.)

It doesn't seem possible now though, because you can't select a single keyword for the placeholder - it uses the see also keywords associated with the topic instead. Unless there's a way to add the keyword in the html instead - but I don't have access to RH2020 to try it out, unfortunately.

[Peter Grainge]

@Amebr See Also is essentially the same in 2019 and 2020 as is Related Topics. See Also is essentially identifying the topics in the same way as tagging so that too would work.

Related Topics is something I never really saw the point of. It's just a heading and then a list of topics manually created for each topic. I just used a heading a links.

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Amebr]

@Peter Chater But in Classic you can associate a keyword with the see also placeholder. This no longer seems to be possible?

[Amebr]

Here's a scenario:

1. 3 see also keywords: Apple, Orange, Pear.

2. 3 topics: Orange, with the Orange keyword assigned, Apple, with the Apple keyword assigned, Pear with the Pear keyword assigned.

3. In the Orange topic I insert a see also placeholder and assign it the Apple keyword, so it shows the Apple topic.

I don't think I can do this now? 

[Olivier Toebosch]

Hello Peter,

You're reading right.

I would like to store a kind 'hidden fields' in a topic, that would be retrieved and shown in another project and topic.

Of course manually creating the topic with toc and extra divisions is always possible, but my point and question was whether this could be circonvened and automated, as the information is available months before.

Hoped there was a ready made solution...

The only thing I can suggest for the moment is show the already known information

[Olivier Toebosch]

pushed 'post' too fast...

show the already known information in the first 'release notes' (in the title string) and kind of sort it so they are grouped in the 'major' release what's new topic. And then make it shown in a attractive way.

All manual work...

best regards

Olivier

[Peter Grainge]

I seem to be missing something here.

• In Classic you went to See Also and added a keyword, then you associated topics with that keyword.
• In the New UI versions you go to See Also and add a keyword, then you associate topics with that keyword.

What is it that is missing in the New UI?

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Olivier Toebosch]

Hello Peter, I did not test the 'see also' feature yet. Honestly wondering if this would solve my problem. Please give me some time to do test. The tags (see also keywords), will they show up in the other project, can I group them?

Purpose is to enumerate topics with the same keyword under each other, and show the keyword as title. Clicking on the topic will show the original topic (in my case an external chmfile), or better, it is retrieved at compilation and part of the new project.

I have both RH version installed.

best regards

Olivier

[Amebr]

I can add a See Also keyword to a topic using the Topic Properties. I cannot see any way to add a See Also keyword to the See Also button/placeholder.

This part of the Insert See Also Button dialog box from Classic seems to be missing in New UI (at least in 2019, but I can't see any mention of it in your 2020 tour).

I'd expect a field to add the see also keyword to the placeholder in here somewhere, if the functionality existed.

[Peter Grainge]

My response re how See Also works was in response to @Amebr so that she can clarify how Classic and New UI differ.

In Reports you can go to the See Also Report and see the topics associated with a keyword and go to the Conditional Tags Report and see the topics with a specific tag applied.

In a project you can only use these features within the project. You are now talking about external CHM files.

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Peter Grainge]

I now see what you are getting at. In the new UI you type a keyword in the properties and if it exists, RoboHelp will then add the topic to that keyword. If not it creates a new keyword. Periodically you would have to check for say Dog or Dogs I guess.

I think I will add a feature request to show as the the user types any existing keyword that part matches it.

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Amebr]

I don't understand what this means. I'm not sure what typing you are talking about.

What I'm saying is there is no way to limit the placeholder to showing only specific keywords, which may be different from the keywords assigned to the topic that you insert the placeholder into.

[Amebr]

In any case, I'll stop discussing this here as it seems obvious that See Also keywords will not help the OP as the functionality that might work does not exist in RH2020.

[Peter Grainge]

I'll email you tomorrow but I thought we were discussing how to add keywords in the Topic Properties panels. I posted how it could be done based on how I was told it was going to be implemented. I now see it was not implemented that way! 

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Amebr]

@Olivier Toebosch I can't think of any way in RH to do this automatically. You might be able to use meta tags in the topics and write a script to display the meta keywords in a topic, but you would need to get a javascript developer to help with that.

If you then wanted to display those keywords in a topic in a different project, the only way i can think of would be to import the required topics into that project and implement the same script.