Why build a Table of Contents? Because the Table of Contents (TOC) is the backbone of your help system. Like a well-organized book, a good help system provides a TOC listing of pages and chapters, so that users can quickly browse the topics and find the information they are looking for. People do not read help pages from beginning to end. They utilize help systems as reference guides to find specific answers to specific questions, hoping to do so in as little time as possible.
The most important components of your help system are the TOC, index, and search engine. Through HelpLogic's easy to use Visual TOC Builder, you can create a well-organized Table of Contents that assigns an HTML help page and search/index keywords to each topic. When you are ready to publish your help pages (via the "Publish" toolbar button), HelpLogic converts your project into the selected help format by using your TOC and its keyword and link references as a blueprint.
For example, our Web-based Help format is not only cross-platform and cross-browser compatible, but it also includes three selectable tabs (Contents, Index, and Search) and a navigation toolbar to provide a comprehensive, intuitive, user-friendly help experience. Your TOC chapters and pages are displayed in the Contents tab. Your TOC keywords are displayed as an alphabetical index in the Index tab. And the Search tab hosts a client-side JavaScript search engine that's powered by your TOC titles, keywords, and descriptions.
So take special care to design a well-thought, organized Table of Contents, since the way it looks in the Visual TOC Builder is exactly the way it will look in your published help system.
The Visual TOC Builder includes icon buttons for "Source File", "Keyword Tags", and "Description Tag". Single click on a Topic's "Keyword Tags" icon or "Description Tag" icon to view that Topic's keywords or description respectively in the bottom status bar. Single click on a Topic's "Source File" icon to view that Topic's source file path in the bottom status bar. Control-click (Mac) on a Topic's "Source File" icon to Edit or Preview that HTML file. Double-click a Topic's "Source File" icon to open it in your default editor.