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About the Mini-TOC Proxy

This feature is supported in all online and print outputs.

A mini-TOC proxy allows you to generate a portion of your table of contents (TOC) or topic headings at a particular location in the output. A mini-TOC proxy can be used for both online and print-based output. For online output, you can insert a mini-TOC proxy into a master page. For print-based output formats, you can insert a mini-TOC proxy into any topic where you want to generate a small TOC. For example, let's say you want the first page of each chapter in a manual to start out with a small TOC, showing the page numbers where subheadings occur within that chapter. In that case, you can insert a mini-TOC proxy into each topic that you plan to use as the beginning of each chapter. If you insert the proxy into a master page, each topic using that master page will have a mini-TOC. If you insert the proxy into certain topics only, mini-TOCs will be generated only within those particular topics. See Creating Master Pages and Creating a Mini-TOC for Print Output.

How does Flare decide which topic links to include in a mini-TOC? It works just like a regular TOC proxy that you can use for an entire manual. By default the mini-TOC for your print-based output is based on the <h1> through <h6> tags that you have applied to content in your topics. When you insert the proxy, you select a number for the heading depth. For example, if you place the proxy after an <h1> heading and select 4 as the depth, the proxy will include headings that are using <h2>, <h3>, and <h4> styles (but not <h5> or <h6>). Please note that the print TOC is NOT necessarily based on the structure of your "outline TOC." However, there is a switch on the Advanced tab in the Target Editor that lets you base the generated mini-TOC on the structure of your "outline TOC." Regardless of the method you choose, the links in the mini-TOC point to any topics that are subordinate to the current topic.

Examples

examples for online output

Here is how a mini-TOC might look in the output for a Help system:

examples for print-based output

example—styles method

Let's say that you want to use the default method, where the mini-TOC entries are based on headings using the <h1> through <h6> styles in your project. Perhaps you have created a lengthy topic, with the <h1> style applied to the first heading in that topic and several subheadings below it that are using the <h2> and <h3> styles. Like this:

Now let's say that you insert a mini-TOC proxy between the <h1> heading and the first <h2> heading, like this:

When you insert the proxy, let's say you specify that it should use a depth of 3. In that case, the output will display links that point to all your subheadings—the <h2> headings (which are second-level headings), as well as the <h3> headings (which are third-level headings). But suppose you also have, say, <h4> headings in the topic content. Those <h4> headings will not be included in the mini-TOC because you selected a depth of 3 rather than 4 or higher.

In the output, it might look something like this:

example—toc structure method

Let's say that you want to use the method where the mini-TOC entries are based on the structure of your "outline TOC." Perhaps you have created several topics that are organized in your TOC, like "Chapter 5" in this example:

That book in the TOC consists of seven topics (Chapter 5, Exercising a Dog, Indoor Exercise, Outdoor Exercise, Feeding a Dog, Picking a Dog, and Training a Dog). Let's say that you want to insert a mini-TOC proxy into the "Chapter 5" topic so that it creates a small TOC pointing to the other topics under it. Furthermore, suppose that you are using the <h1> style at the top of each of those topics, and you do not want to change that fact. In that case, you can simply insert the mini-TOC proxy into the "Chapter 5" topic, like this:

When you insert the proxy, you specify that it should include three levels of headings in the mini-TOC, because in the output Flare will create three levels based on your structure.

You can then open the target that you want to generate, select the Advanced tab, and click the option to generate your TOC based on the structure of the TOC in your project.

Like this:

In the output, the "Chapter 5" topic might look something like this:

Please remember that the topic containing your mini-TOC proxy must be on a higher level in the TOC than the topics that you want to be captured by that mini-TOC.

Note: If you want to change the look of mini-TOCs used in print-based output, see Using Styles to Determine the Look of a Print Mini-TOC. If you want to change the look of mini-TOCs used in online output, see Using Styles to Determine the Look of an Online Mini-TOC.

Note: In previous versions of Flare, the code for styling mini-TOC proxy links was .MCMiniTOCLink. Starting in Flare V4, the style class used for this purpose is p.MiniTOC1. See Editing Styles and Using Styles to Determine the Look of a Print Mini-TOC.

Note: For some proxies, you can specify which output types should support them. If an output type supports a particular proxy, the generated content is displayed in the output where the proxy was inserted. If an output type does not support a particular proxy, it is simply ignored when the output is generated. You can use the mc-output-support style property to change which output types support a proxy. See Using Styles to Determine Output Support for Proxies.

See Also

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