Topic icon
The topic icon is displayed before the topic title in the table of contents. By default, topics containing children will be given a book icon, whereas topic without child will be given a note icon. To change the icon for each individual topic:
- Select the "Home" ribbon tab, then click the "Topic properties" item and choose the new topic icon
- Right click on any existing topic in the table of contents to open the topic management menu then choose the new topic icon
Topic kind
Each individual topic in HelpNDoc can be either:
- A normal topic - This is a standard topic where new content can be entered in the topic editor
- An empty topic - No content will be entered in that topic and will make it a chapter topic
- An URL topic - This topic will show an external URL instead of the content
- An external included file - The file specified will be included at compilation time in the content of the topic
To change the topic's kind:
- Select the "Home" ribbon tab, then click the "Topic properties" then "Topic kind" item and choose the topic kind
- Right click on any existing topic in the table of contents to open the topic management menu then go to the "Topic kind" item to choose the topic kind
- At the topic of the topic editor, click the topic kind link to choose the topic kind
Help ID
This is one of the most important part of a topic when using the generated documentation. The help ID is a unique alpha-numeric identifier used to locate the topic. This ID will be used to name individual HTML files in the generated HTML documentation, and can be used to open that specific topic from any programming language in the CHM documentation.
To change a topic's Help ID:
- Select the "Home" ribbon tab, then click the "Topic properties" item and enter the new Help ID
- Right click on any existing topic in the table of contents to open the topic management menu then enter the new Help ID
Note: The Help ID can only contain alpha-numeric characters. HelpNDoc will ensure this rule by automatically removing any unwanted characters (such as spaces) from the input.
Help Context
The help context is a numeric value which is unique to each topic. It can be used to uniquely identify a topic, or open a specific CHM topic using Windows APIs.
To change a topic's Help context:
- Select the "Home" ribbon tab, then click the "Topic properties" item and enter the new Help context
- Right click on any existing topic in the table of contents to open the topic management menu then enter the new Help context
Topic Header
The topic header is a simple text which is usually displayed as the title of the topic. By default, HelpNDoc will use the topic title as the header, but it can be configured to either:
- Hide the header - No header will be displayed for that topic
- Display a custom text - A custom text can be specified as the header of that topic.
To change a topic's header:
- Select the "Home" ribbon tab, then click the "Topic properties" then "Topic header" item and choose the topic header
- Right click on any existing topic in the table of contents to open the topic management menu then go to the "Topic header" item to choose the topic header
- At the topic of the topic editor, click the topic header link to choose the topic header
Topic Footer
The topic footer is a simple text which is usually displayed at the bottom of the topic. By default, HelpNDoc will use the project copyright as the footer, but it can be configured to either:
- Hide the footer - No footer will be displayed for that topic
- Display a custom text - A custom text can be specified as the footer of that topic.
To change a topic's footer:
- Select the "Home" ribbon tab, then click the "Topic properties" then "Topic footer" item and choose the topic footer
- Right click on any existing topic in the table of contents to open the topic management menu then go to the "Topic footer" item to choose the topic footer
- At the topic of the topic editor, click the topic footer link to choose the topic header