Hot spot text consists of the primary part (left) and an optional secondary part (right); each part is separated by a separator bar ( | ).
• Primary part: This is the text that will be shown in the target. This part is the main, default source of information specifying what the hot spot should do. It contains plain text and no properties.
Note: When the primary part is formatted with a style with the Hidden property set to True in the Doc-To-Help project, it will not be visible in the target.
• Secondary part: This text will not be visible in the target. This part specifies the property values of the hot spot. The secondary part is optional and used only in advanced cases. It consists of one or more property settings of the form “<property name>=<value>”. The properties are separated by a semicolon (;).
Here are some examples of both primary and secondary parts:
|
This is a link to My Topic. |
My Topic is the primary part of the hot spot. There is no secondary part. Doc-To-Help creates a link to the topic My Topic. |
|
This is a link to My Topic|window=proc. |
My Topic is the primary part of the hot spot. Window=proc is the secondary part, which contains one property and one property value. The property is window, and the property value is proc. Doc-To-Help creates a link to the topic My Topic, which appears in the procedural window. |
|
This is a link to My Topic|tag=Topic;window=proc. |
My Topic is the primary part of the hot spot. Tag=Topic;window=proc is the secondary part, which contains two properties and two property values. The first property is Tag, which is a primary property, and its value is Topic. The second property is window, and its value is proc. Doc-To-Help creates a link to a different topic titled Topic, which appears in the procedural window. |
Both the primary and secondary parts of the hot spot must be formatted with a D2HML style in order for the hot spot to work correctly.
Reserved Characters:
The following characters are reserved for use with D2HML:
|
| |
Separates the primary part from the secondary part. |
|
; |
Separates properties in the secondary part. |
|
= |
Separates the property name and the property value. |
|
+ |
Separates values in the list of a collection property. |
|
, |
Separates parent and child keywords. Used only in the Keyword property value. |
|
: |
Separates the attribute name and the attribute value. Used only in the Attribute property value. |
Escaping Rules for Reserved Characters:
If you want to use the reserved character ‘|’ in your primary part text and suppress its reserved meaning of ending the primary part, escape it with a backslash: ‘\|’. The escaping backslash will be removed and the vertical line character is preserved in the target as normal text. For example, the following hot spot formatted with the C1H Jump style
File\|Open|tag=File_Open
will create a link in the target with text File|Open.
All remaining reserved characters except the vertical line (semicolon, equality, plus, comma and colon) have special meaning in the secondary part. If you want to use them in the secondary part of a hot spot as simple text without special meaning, escape them with backslash. For example, the following hot spot formatted with the C1H Index style
Text|keyword=low+high
creates two keywords ‘low’ and ‘high’, but
Text|keyword=low\+high
creates one keyword ‘low+high’.
Note that since there is only one reserved character in the primary part, the vertical line, escaping of other characters is not supported in the primary part, so the following hot spot formatted with the C1H Index style
low\+high
creates a single keyword ‘low\+high’.
More:
Hot Spot Properties