How to manage your topic identifiers in HelpNDoc (Step-by-step guide)

Learn more: http://www.helpndoc.com/step-by-step-...
Each topic in HelpNDoc is uniquely identified by an Help ID and an Help Context so that it can easily be referenced from a Web or Windows application.

When you create a new topic, HelpNDoc assigns two identifiers:
* Help ID is an alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies a specific topic in various documentation formats
* Help Context is a numeric index that uniquely identifies a specific CHM topic using the Windows API

Both of these identifiers are mandatory for each topic; neither may contain a space.

Note: By default, the Help ID is automatically updated when the topic caption is changed. To disable this behavior, click "Project options" in the "Home" ribbon tab, then un-check "Always synchronize Help ID with topic caption".

By default, HelpNDoc assigns the topic name to the Help ID and a system-generated number to the Help Context. To view the identifiers assigned to a topic, you have two options:

Option 1

Select the topic for which you'd like to view and update the identifiers.
Click Topic properties in the Home ribbon tab.
This displays a menu with the Help ID and Help Context values.

Option 2

Right-click the topic to access the menu as outlined above.

To assign a new Help ID or Help Context number to a topic, enter the new identifier and then press the Enter keyboard shortcut.

It is possible to view and edit both the Help ID and Help Context properties of all topics in the table of contents by switching to the extended view.

To show the extended view, click Switch to compact/extended view in the table of contents section of the Home ribbon tab.

This displays the Help IDs and Help Context for each topic in your table of contents.

To edit the Help ID or Help Context for a topic, double click the cell, make the change and validate with the Enter keyboard shortcut.

If a column is not fully viewable, you can click and drag the right-hand cell border outward.
To snap the column to a width that fully displays its contents, double-click the right-hand cell border.

To toggle your table of contents back to the compact view, click Switch to compact/extended view in the table of contents section of the Home ribbon tab. This displays only the topic names in your table of contents, expanding your desktop.

Thanks to Help ID and Help Context, developers can link your Windows applications and web pages to specific topics within your documentation. We will see in other guides how to achieve that for various programming languages and web applications.

Learn more and download HelpNDoc free for personal use at http://www.helpndoc.com

---

Closed Caption:

Hello Folks. Each topic in HelpNDoc is uniquely identified by a ‘Help ID’ and a ‘Help Context’ so
that it can easily be referenced from a Web or Windows application.
The ‘Help ID’ is an alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies a specific topic in various documentation formats.
The ‘Help Context’ is a numeric index that uniquely identifies a specific ‘Microsoft Compiled HTML Help’ topic,
also known as ‘CHM’ using the Windows API.
Both of these identifiers are mandatory for each topic and neither may contain a space.
By default, the 'Help ID' is automatically updated when the topic caption is changed. To disable this behavior, click 'Project options' in the
'Home' ribbon tab, then un-check 'Always synchronize Help ID with topic caption'.
Also by default, HelpNDoc assigns the topic name to the ‘Help ID’ and a system-generated number to the ‘Help Context’.
To view the identifiers assigned to a topic, you can use one of the following two methods:
Select the topic for which you'd like to view and update the identifiers. Now click ‘Topic properties’ in the ‘Table of Contents’ group on
the Home ribbon tab. This displays a dropdown menu revealing the 'Help ID' and 'Help Context' values.
The other method for showing your identifiers is to just right-click the topic to access the popup menu,
and there near the bottom you can view the two identifiers as previously mentioned.
To assign a new 'Help ID' or 'Help Context' number to a topic, simply enter the new identifier and then press the Enter key to save
your changes. It is possible to view and edit both the ‘Help ID’ and ‘Help Context’ properties of all topics in the
table of contents at the same time by switching to the extended view.
To show the extended view, click the ‘Switch to compact/extended view’ icon in the table of contents group of the Home ribbon tab.
This displays the ‘Help IDs’ and ‘Help Context’ for each topic in your table of contents. If you don’t see the identifiers, simply enlarge the left
pane by clicking and holding the left mouse button down and dragging the dividing line outward.
Now to edit the ‘Help ID’ or ‘Help Context’ for a topic, double click the cell, make the changes
and then press the Enter key to save your changes.
Again, if a column is not fully viewable, you can click and drag the right-hand cell border outward. To snap the column to a width that fully
displays its longest contents, you can just double-click the right-hand cell border.
To toggle your table of contents back to the compact view, click the ‘Switch to compact/extended view’ icon once again in the
Table of Contents group of the Home ribbon tab. This then displays only the topic names in your Table of Contents pane.
Thanks to the ‘Help ID’ and ‘Help Context’ identifiers, developers can link your Windows applications and web pages to specific topics
within your documentation. We will show you in future videos how to achieve this for various programming languages and web applications.
HelpNDoc is free for personal use and evaluation purposes. You can download it at
www.helpndoc.com and see other video guides at www.helpndoc.com/online-help
Thanks for Watching!