Managing Online Navigation

The tools for navigating any online material are important resources for helping the end user find information quickly and easily. Your users can traverse your online content using the table of contents, index, search, and other buttons and links that appear in your generated output.

Table of Contents

ePublisher does not use the table of contents (TOC) in your source document when it generates the online table of contents, but bases the TOC on paragraphs from your source document.

Depending on the format on which you have based your output, you can set up your project to specify the filename to be assigned to the generated TOC or not generate the TOC at all. For more information on how to specify the filename assigned to the TOC see "Generating the Table of Contents" on page 128.

By default, ePublisher Pro is set to include the TOC as part of your online content once it has been set up properly in your project.

Creating the Table of Contents

You must create the TOC settings before ePublisher Pro will generate the TOC and incorporate it into your final output format.

To create the table of contents:

Generating the Table of Contents

Once you have created your table of contents using the Style Designer, ePublisher Pro is instructed to generate the TOC, by default. The Dynamic HTML and Simple HTML formats, however, offer an additional capability for users to prevent generation of the TOC or change the generated TOC filename.

To prevent ePublisher from generating the TOC:

To change the filename of the table of contents:

Setting up the Table of Contents from an Irregular Heading Hierarchy

Many authors follow a regular heading hierarchy in the source document. A regular paragraph hierarchy is one in which no levels are skipped in the hierarchy, as shown in the following example:

First Heading 1

  First Heading 2

    First Heading 3

    Second Heading 3

  Second Heading 2

Another Heading 1

  Another Heading 2

  Yet Another Heading 2

Some documentation methodologies and processes, however, require that authors skip levels in the hierarchy, resulting in an irregular heading hierarchy like the one shown in the following example:

First Heading 1

      First Heading 4

      Second Heading 4

    First Heading 3

Second Heading 1

    Another Heading 3

    Still Another Heading 3

Final Heading 1

This heading hierarchy, in the source document, results in an irregular table of contents hierarchy. The above example is irregular because a Heading 2 entry does not exist at all and the Heading 3 entries appear out of sequence in the hierarchy.

Since your generated table of contents is created from paragraphs in the source documents, irregular hierarchies can cause an aesthetically displeasing table of contents when converting your source documents to an online format. ePublisher uses, by default, Smart Collapse to remove skipped heading levels from the table of contents. However, if removing skipped levels results in, for example, a Heading 3 and Heading 4 displaying at the same level, ePublisher automatically inserts an entry into the table of contents to preserve the correct relative hierarchy. For example, with Smart Collapse the above example would be converted as follows:

To eliminate all skipped levels from the table of contents:

To duplicate the source document’s heading hierarchy using empty entries:

To duplicate the source document’s heading hierarchy using labels:

Table of Contents and Merge Settings

Not only can the table of contents be generated from setting up your Heading styles, but they can also be generated using Merge Settings. Merge Settings allow ePublisher users to combine multiple top-level groups into a single hierarchy. Not all formats support merging, as it typically applies only to Help sysystems, however, users are now beginning to customize the Dynamic HTML format so that it has this capability as well.

Index

The index provides the user with a point-and-click resource for quickly navigating your online content. ePublisher will generate the index by default for all the available formats, using the native indexing features of the tool you are using to create the printed index.

The groups and order of index entries in your online index are determined through a combined effort of indexing in the source document, the locales.xml file located in the ePublisher Pro install directory and the format’s runtime. The locales.xml file also determines the text that identifies “See” and “See also” style entries in your index.

Depending on the format on which you have based your output, you can set up your project to specify the filename to be assigned to the generated index or not generate the index at all. Why would you not want to generate an index? You may just be converting a single, short document that does not need indexing.

Generating the Index

The indexing feature in the tool you are using to create your source document is responsible for creating the printed index and the online index.

To prevent generation of the index:

To change the filename of the index:

Breadcrumb Trail

Breadcrumbs form a linked path to show users the location of the current topic in your online content. This clickable path steps you through the topics that are responsible for getting you to the topic being viewed.

Breadcrumbs can appear at the top of the page, at the bottom of the page, or both. The breadcrumb trail at the top of the output page is enabled by default.

To modify the location of the breadcrumb trail:

To modify the separators between entries in the breadcrumb trail:

Miniature Table of Contents

A miniature table of contents (mini-TOC) is used to provide a small-scale look at the upcoming section’s topics. The topic titles are displayed as links beneath the current topic’s heading for easier navigation within the section.

Creating a Miniature Table of Contents

A miniature table of contents (mini-TOC) is not created for your online content by default. Your mini-TOC will be set up inside the Style Designer using numeric values.

Before you begin:

Create the main online table of contents for the project by following the instructions in "Creating the Table of Contents" on page 128. Your mini-TOC is derived from the table of contents level settings you set up for the project

To create a mini-TOC:

This will create a mini-TOC for all TOC level settings between the current topic title’s paragraph style and the next occurrence of this same style and display the mini-TOC on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.

 

Table 1: Values for the mini-TOC level option
Value	Functionality
None	No mini-TOC is created.
All	A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.
1	A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels one up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.
2	A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels one and two up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.
3	A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels one through three up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.
4	A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels one through four up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.
5	A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels one through five up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.
n	Any numeric entry. A mini-TOC is created for all TOC levels one through n up to the next occurrence of the current paragraph style and displayed on all output pages on which this paragraph style occurs.

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