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 Index-driven Approach

2024/02/18 • 3 min. to read

In this topic

• Index-driven Topic Headers
• Index-driven Topic Links
• See also

Until now, the text to be displayed for topic headers and topic links was always specified directly in the help topic. So for example:

<h1>Hello World</h1>

or:

<more "HowNCHBWorks">Preparations, How the Help Builder works</more>

The disadvantage of this form of specification is that when changes are made in the structure or the arrangement and grouping of the help topics in the table of contents, all headings and links affected by them must also be updated. Especially with larger online helps, this approach quickly leads to errors and is time consuming. With the index-driven approach these problems can be avoided as the text displayed is determined by the table of contents. If the structure or the arrangement and grouping of the help topics in the table of contents is changed later, the topic headers and topic links do not need to be changed additionally.

Index-driven Topic Headers

For topic headers, the _iTopicHeader snippet is available. Instead of specifying the text directly in the topic as before:

<h1>Hello World</h1>

you can simply specify the placeholder <iheader>:

<h1><iheader></h1>

The online help later displays the text specified in the table of contents instead of the placeholder.

Index-driven Topic Links

For topic links, the _iTopicLink, _iTopicLinkMoreInfo, _iTopicLinkShort and _iTopicLinkShortMoreInfo snippets are available. Instead of specifying the text directly with the link as before:

<more "HowNCHBWorks">Preparations, How the Help Builder works</more>

the i variant no longer needs text:

<imore "HowNCHBWorks">

The online help later displays the text specified in the table of contents.

See also

• Preparations, How the Help Builder works