Document Topics

Description: Document topics contain elements such as plain text, hypertext links, and imbedded graphics. Topics have headings, like chapters in a hardcopy document. When displayed in the Document page, the topic heading ID (name or number, for BookManager Books only) and the topic title are shown.

The following elements are found in document topics:

Table of Contents

A list of topics contained in a document.

Tables

Data rendered using HTML markup, usually arranged in rows and columns, such as a grid or a spreadsheet layout. If the author specified a table list and there are tables in the document, a Tables topic will exist in the Table of Contents. Certain tables within BookManager Books can not be rendered with HTML markup. These tables are rendered as preformatted data, thus can be larger than the viewing area and require scrolling.

Figures

Preformatted drawings or other illustrations, built into the document. If the author specified a figure list and there are figures in the document, a Figures topic will exist in the Table of Contents. Since figures are preformatted they can be larger than the viewing area and require scrolling.

Pictures

BookManager Books can contain graphics that are compiled into the Book at build time. These are portable across platforms and converted or extracted, as necessary, when the Book topic is displayed. See Displaying BookManager Pictures (BookManager Books Only) for more information.

Internet Images

You can view Internet images on the Document page. See Linking to Internet Resources for more information.

Hypertext Links

Documents can contain hypertext links within topics, between topics, between documents, and to Internet resources.

Text

Topic text can be either preformatted or be formatted when displayed at the browser. Books built with BookManager Build 1.2 contain preformatted text. Books built with BookManager Build 1.3 and BookManager Build 2.x allow many text elements to be formatted when displayed at the browser, such as tables, paragraphs and lists.

Notes

For BookManager Books, any comments you make in Book topics are displayed in a list of notes at the bottom of the topic.

Table of Contents Topic

Description: The Table of Contents topic lists the topics defined by the author. In an InfoCenter, a table of contents for the entire InfoCenter is generated by Library Server when the InfoCenter is indexed. The topic identifier is typically Contents. If the table of contents exists, you can reach it by choosing the Table of Contents icon on the toolbar of the Book page. From a framed Book page, if the table of contents exists, you can display it in a topic frame by choosing the Table of Contents link from the Table of Contents frame. Note that if the administration setting for frames-based document pages as the default is in effect, selecting this link causes the cached copy of the document's table of contents file to be refreshed.

Using the Table of Contents: Use the table of contents to view the document's contents and link to other topics in the document. When you choose the Table of Contents icon, available for unframed Document pages, the Table of Contents is positioned to the topic you last viewed, or to the beginning of the Table of Contents if the topic level is not included in the Table of Contents.

For a Table of Contents appearing in an unframed document page of a BookManager Book, you can expand or summarize the table of contents to view subtopics or only main topics. By default, the table of contents is expanded, listing all the subtopics that the author allows. To view only the main topics, click on the word [Summarize] at the top of the table of contents. To switch back to the expanded table of contents, click on the word [Expand].

For framed document pages, the table of contents, if one exists, is always present in it's own frame and appears in tree form with each of the individual topic nodes being independently expandable and collapsible.

Authors can elect to include only a certain level of topics in the Table of Contents. In this case, topic levels not included can be reached by the previous topic and next topic icons, and by hypertext links from the subtopics list at the end of other topics.

BookManager Book Description: When a Book is opened to the first topic (usually its cover page), the following Book description information is displayed at the top of the Document Page:

• Title
• Author
• Document number
• Date and time the Book was built
• Build version
• Directory path and filename of the Book