When you are working in the Project Files section, the Project Explorer functions as a file manager for your topic files and the folders where they are stored. If you are working in uncompressed XML format (Professional and Floating license versions only, .hmxp project file) the files and folders are stored directly on your hard drive. In the compressed single-file .hmxz format the files and folders are stored inside the compressed .hmxz file, which is actually a normal ZIP archive.
You can use include options to "filter" the display of your topics in the TOC and Topic Files section of the Project Explorer. This makes it possible for you to see only the topics that will be included in a specific build, so that you can preview the results of specific build options without publishing your project. 1.Apply build options to one or more topics. If you don't do this filtering will not have any effect! See Conditions and Customized Output for details. 2.Select Explore > Filter in Project > Manage Topics and set the filter options you want to apply. The filter settings are also available from the right-click menu in the Project Explorer (Explore > Filter). This works both in the TOC and in Topic Files. This only filters entire topics, it does not filter conditional text tagged within your topics. Important Notes: •The current build settings of topics are shown in the Project Explorer, next to the topic caption in the TOC. Topics and chapters set to All Builds (the default) will always be included, of course – you cannot hide them. •Filtered topics will be either shown in a different color or hidden completely. This depends on your settings for When filtering the table of contents... in View > Program Options > General. See Program Options - General for details on these settings. |
Folders:Select Topic Files in the Project Files section of the Project Explorer. This will initially display a list of the folders in which your topic files are stored. How many folders are displayed will depend on whether you have created sub-folders: ![]() Files:Select the Topics folder or any other folder in the Topic Files section: ![]()
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You can check whether topic files have TOC entries with the In TOC column above the file list on the right. You can also sort and group files by this option (see below). In addition to this you can also locate files that do not have TOC entries with the Report Tool in the Project tab. ![]() |
You can sort and group files by several different criteria (name, modification status, modification date, build option, topic status). You can combine sorting and grouping: When the files are grouped the sorting options are applied within each group. Sorting the files:Just left-click in the column header you want to sort by. Alternatively you can also right-click in the column header and select the sort option in the context menu. Grouping the files:Right-click in the column header and select the group option in the context menu, or select Ungroup to return to an ungrouped list. ![]() |
You can create additional folders in the Topic Files section to organize your files to make them easier to manage. For example, it is a good idea to keep topic files without TOC entries in separate folders. All folders must be sub-topics of the main Topics folder All folders you create must be sub-folders of the main Topics folder. You cannot create additional top-level folders on the same level as the Topics folder. Folders must contain at least one topic to appear in the file system When you create a folder in Help+Manual in an uncompressed HMXP project it is only registered in the project file. It will not be created aS a physical sub-folder in your project folder until you add at least one topic to it. (You won't see the folder in Windows Explorer until it contains one or more topics.) 1.Select the folder in which you want to create your new folder – either the main Topics folder or a sub-folder that you have already created. 2.Right-click and select Add New Folder in the context menu, or select Add File > Add New Folder in Project > Manage Topics. 3. Enter the name for the new folder and select OK. |
Cutting and pasting is not possible with topic files in the Topic Files section because you are actually dealing with physical files. (See Moving, cutting and pasting topics for instructions on working with topic entries in the TOC.) However you can move files between folders and delete files in the Topic Files section. Moving topic files and folders:To move a topic file from one folder to another just drag it to the new folder with the mouse. You can also move folders in the same way. Deleting topic files:Just select the topic file in the Explorer and press DEL or right-click and select Delete File. Renaming topic files:You cannot rename topic files directly. To rename the topic file you need to edit the Topic ID. 1.Select the topic file in the Explorer. 2.Select the Topic Options tab on the left of the main editor window, edit the Topic ID and save your project to update the Topic Files display. All references to the topic in the project will be updated automatically. However, since the ID changes any references to the topic from other help projects or elsewhere will no longer work. This includes links to specific topics in WebHelp from other websites, because the topic ID is also the name of the HTML topic file in WebHelp. You should thus be cautious about renaming topics, particularly topics that get a lot of traffic on your website. |
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