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Common Desktop Environment: Help System Author's and Programmer's Guide

Adding a Nonhierarchical Topic

Topics entered with a <chapter> or <s1...s9> element tag automatically appear in the topic tree. When a title is selected in the topic tree, the corresponding help topic is displayed in a general help dialog box. However, sometimes you may want to create and display a topic independent of the topic hierarchy you have created. For example, you might want to display a topic in a separate, quick help window.

To Add a Nonhierarchical Topic

    Add the topic just before the end of your meta information section using the <otherfront> element as follows: 

<otherfront id=id><head>  Topic Title
 Body of topic.

The ID parameter and <head> tag are required.

You can add as many <otherfront> topics as you want. They may be in any order, but they must be the last topics in the <metainfo> ... <\metainfo> section.

Example

This partial help volume shows how a general topic is added to the meta information section. The topic's title is "Pop-up!" and its ID is my-popup-topic. 

<metainfo>
   <title> My Help
   <copyright>
      This is My Help, Version 1.0.  &copy; 1995.
         .
         .
         .
   <otherfront id=my-popup-topic> <head> Pop-up!

   This is a pop-up topic, displayed via a definition link
   somewhere in my help volume.
 <\metainfo>

 <hometopic>  Welcome to My Help
         .
         .
         .

Presumably, within some other topic in the help volume, there's a definition link to display this topic.

The link might look like this: 

Here's a sample of a pop-up <link my-popup-topic Definition> definition link<\link>.

The words "definition link" become the active hyperlink and will be displayed with a dashed underline. Selecting the link displays the "Pop-up!" topic in a quick help dialog box.

See Also