Concept Link Example

The following example is designed to help make the idea of concept links clearer and guide you through the steps for creating your own concept links.

Scenario

Let's say we have a Flare project called "Pets." In this project, we have dozens of topics about all kinds of animals (cats, dogs, parrots, hamsters, and so on). We have written five topics about dogs.

  • Choosing a Dog
  • Feeding a Dog
  • Training a Dog
  • Grooming a Dog
  • Walking a Dog

Because these five topics all have something in common (i.e., they're all about dogs), we want to include a link at the bottom of each of those five topics that lets users quickly jump to any of the other "dog" topics.

Step 1—Create and Insert a Concept

First, we need to create a concept to tie these five topics together. We can create a concept with any name that we want, but it helps to name the keyword something that is obvious and all topics have in common. Therefore, we'll give our concept the name "dogs."

  1. Open any of the five topics (see Opening Topics). In this example, we'll open the topic "Choosing a Dog."
  2. Click in the location in the topic where you want to insert the concept. Typically, you'll insert the concept somewhere near the top of the topic. In our example, we will click right before our topic title "Choosing a Dog."
  3. Select View > Concept Window or press SHIFT+F9 on your keyboard. The Concept window pane opens.

  4. The cursor should already be placed in the Terms cell. If not, click in that cell. Type Dogs and press ENTER. A concept marker labeled "Dogs" is added before the topic title. If you cannot see the marker, turn your markers on by clicking the down arrow next to the Show tags button Show Tags button in the XML Editor. Then select Show Markers.

Step 2—Copy and Paste the Concept Marker Into All Relevant Topics

Next, we need to place the same concept in our other four "dog" topics. We could repeat the same steps above for each topic, but we'll copy and paste our first concept marker instead.

  1. In the "Choosing a Dog" topic, right-click on the concept marker and choose Copy.

  2. Open another "dog" topic ("Feeding a Dog," "Training a Dog," etc.). Click in front of the topic title (or somewhere near the top of the topic), and press CTRL+V on your keyboard.

    Repeat this until you've pasted the concept marker into all five of the "dog" topics.

  3. Click Save all files. to save all files.

Now that we have the concepts in place, we can insert a concept link into each of the five "dog" topics. This is the link that users will see and click in the output. They will not see the concepts that we created at the top of each topic (those are simply markers).

  1. In one of the "dog" topics, place your cursor at the end of the last piece of content (e.g., after the final paragraph). Then press ENTER to create a new paragraph.
  2. Select Insert > Concept Link (A-link). The Insert Concept Link Control dialog opens. The "Dogs" concept that we inserted is listed on the right side of the dialog.
  3. In the All Concepts section, double-click Dogs. This concept is now listed in the "Selected Concepts" section on the left.

  4. Click OK. The concept link is added to the topic.

Step 4—Copy and Paste the Concept Link Into All Relevant Topics

Finally, we need to place the same concept link in our other four "dog" topics. We could repeat the same steps above for each topic, but we'll copy and paste our first concept link instead.

  1. In the topic where the first link has been inserted, right-click on the concept link and choose Copy.
  2. Open another "dog" topic ("Feeding a Dog," "Training a Dog," etc.). Place your cursor at the end of the last piece of content (e.g., after the final paragraph). Then press ENTER to create a new paragraph.

  3. Press CTRL+V on your keyboard.

    Repeat this until you've pasted the concept link into all five of the "dog" topics.

  4. Click Save all files. to save all files.