Keywords

Keywords associated with the appropriate help topics form the Index of your help system. Like the Table of Contents (TOC), keyword Index is an important tool providing the user with easy navigation through a help system.

Choose View|Keywords from the menu to display the keywords pane.

The keywords pane lists all the keywords of the current help project. The checkbox marks to left of each keyword indicate whether the keyword is linked with the current topic. Note that a help topic may be associated with a number of keywords.

The keyword Index has a tree-type structure which is similar to the Table of Contents of your help system and HelpSmith allows you to insert keywords into other keywords. The keywords in the Index are always sorted alphabetically.

Adding a New Keyword

1.On the Keywords pane, type a name for the new keyword into the appropriate box.

2.On the Keywords menu, click New Keyword.

Use the Keywords|Add keywords as children feature to insert new keywords as sub-items to the currently selected keyword. Otherwise, the new keyword will be inserted to the same level as the selected keyword.

Deleting a Keyword

1.Select the keyword that should be deleted on the keywords pane.

2.On the Keywords menu, click Delete.

Renaming a Keyword

1.Select the keyword that you want to rename on the keywords pane.

2.On the Keywords menu, click Rename.

3.Then type a new keyword name in the edit-box that appears.

Moving Keywords

You can move keywords within the keyword list by using the drag-and-drop method. To select multiple keywords, hold the CTRL key and click the required items.

Associating Topics and Keywords

The Keyword pane allows you to check the marks located to the left of the keyword names in order to associate specific keywords with the current help topic.

You can also edit topic associations for an individual keyword. To do so:

1.Select the required keyword.

2.On the Keywords menu, click Properties.

3.At the dialog-box, check or uncheck topics which should be or should not be associated with this keyword.

4.Click OK then.

Using a KLink Macro

1.In the HelpSmith's word processor, put the caret to where you want to insert a hyperlink.

2.On the Insert menu, click Hyperlink.

3.On the left sidebar, click Macro.

4.Type text for the new hyperlink to the appropriate field.

5.In the Command drop-down box, select "KLink".

6.Type one or more keywords to the appropriate field.

7.Click OK then.

The inserted macro will look up for the topics with corresponding keywords associations. If the system finds a single topic, this topic will be displayed immediately. In case when there are more than one association, the system will offer the user to select a topic from the list.