Creating a Hub Project

In modular output, the hub (or master) project ties all of the child projects together. It should be a small project, but can contain information that does not change often (e.g., welcome message, company contact information) if you wish.

If you create a new child project in the future that is not part of your original hub project, simply add it to the hub project, and distribute both the new hub output and child output to the end user.

Note Before you create a hub project, be sure you have created and built the output for your child projects. You should also set up your file system for the entire modular system. See Building Targets and About Modular Projects.

  1. Create your hub project. The project name should contain no spaces.
  2. Select the Project ribbon.
  3. At the bottom of the Project group, click . The Project Settings dialog opens.
  4. In the Output options section, select Is modular hub project.
  5. Click OK to close the Project Settings dialog.

  6. Open the hub project document and create placeholder topics for each of the child files you wish to associate with the hub. There are several ways to structure this file, but you should choose only one. (The placeholder topics will later be mapped to the child topics. This is done by editing the topic properties.)

    Here are the document structure options:

    • Heading 1 placeholder topics only
    • One Heading 1, followed by placeholder topics (Heading 2 paragraphs)
    • One Heading 1, followed by content in Body Text, then the placeholder topics (Heading 2 paragraphs)
    • One Heading 1, followed by one Heading 2 and Body Text content, then the placeholder topics (Heading 2 paragraphs)
  7. Select the Topics ribbon. In the Related Topics group, select Hide subtopic links for each topic. This disables any automatic related links that may be displayed in the hub project.
  8. Build the output for the hub project.
  9. Add at least two index entries (one must be a keyword) to the project. See Creating Index Keywords in a Source Document.
  10. In Doc-To-Help, select the Home ribbon. At the bottom of the Target group, click . The Help Targets dialog opens.
  11. On the left, choose the target (can be HTML Help, NetHelp, or Eclipse Help). The hub project, and all of the child projects, must use the same target.
  12. If you are using HTML Help, in the Advanced section, clear the Binary index and Binary table of contents check boxes.
  13. Build the output.
  1. Open your hub project.
  2. In the Topics Panel window, right-click a placeholder topic and choose Properties. The Topic Properties dialog opens.

  3. Edit the topic properties, depending on the target of the entire modular project.

    • For HTML Help targets, you need to specify the Module file (.chm) and Contents file (.hhc) fields of the child project for the placeholder topic. (The .chm and .hhc files can be found in the child project’s HTMLHelp folder.)

    • For NetHelp and Eclipse Help targets, you need to specify the Module file field of the child project for the placeholder topic. The Settings.xml file is used and can be found in the child project’s  NetHelp or EclipseHelp folder.

  4. Repeat these steps to map all additional placeholder topics.

  5. Open the Home ribbon and click the Rebuild button. When it is finished, click View Target to see the output.

    Doc-To-Help automatically creates the TOC structure based on the order of the placeholders in the hub source document. Each placeholder topic will be a book in the hub project TOC.

Note For HTML Help projects, you will need to place copies of the child project files (CHM for HTML Help) in the same folder as the hub project files to view the complete modular project. Whenever you do a full rebuild of the target (as opposed to simply building the target), those child files will be overwritten in the hub project folder and must be replaced.

Note For NetHelp projects, all projects in the modular output must be created with the same version of Doc-To-Help.