Getting Started /

A-Keywords

You can associate a help topic with one or multiple A-Keywords. Unlike regular Keywords, A-Keywords do not appear in the Index, but you can still find and display topics associated with specific A-Keywords via a hyperlink using the ALink macro, or via an HTML Help API call from the code of your desktop application.

The Keywords pane displays the A-Keywords of the current help project under the "A-Keywords" node. If you do not see the Keywords pane, on the View tab, click Keywords to display it.

Remark: A-Keywords is a feature provided by HTML Help and is not supported by other output formats.

Add an A-Keyword

1.In the Keywords pane, select the A-Keywords node, or an item under this node.

2.On the Project tab, in the Keywords group, click Add.

3.In the Keywords pane, enter a name for the new keyword.

4.Press Enter.

Remark: By default, a new A-Keyword is added to the same level as the currently selected A-Keyword. However, the Add button also allows you to add a new A-Keyword as a child item to the selected A-Keyword.

Delete an A-Keyword

1.In the Keywords pane, select the A-Keyword that you want to delete.

2.On the Project tab, in the Keywords group, click Delete.

Rename an A-Keyword

1.In the Keywords pane, select the A-Keyword that you want to rename.

2.On the Project tab, in the Keywords group, click Rename.

3.Enter a new name for the selected A-Keyword.

4.Press Enter.

Edit the Structure of A-Keywords

As mentioned above, an A-Keyword can contain child A-Keywords. If you need to move selected keywords from a parent node into another node, you can do so by using the drag-and-drop method.

Associate Topics with A-Keywords

You can associate a topic with any number of A-Keywords.

To edit the associations of the currently opened topic with A-Keywords, you can simply check or uncheck the A-Keywords in the Keywords pane.

Also, you can edit properties of an individual A-Keyword to edit its associations with topics:

1.In the Keywords pane, select the A-Keyword that you need.

2.On the Project tab, in the Keywords group, click Properties.

3.In the dialog, check the topics that should be associated with the selected A-Keyword.

4.Click OK.

Using the ALink Macro

The ALink macro allows you to insert a hyperlink that will display the list of topics associated with specific A-Keywords. When the user clicks on such a hyperlink and the help system finds only one topic associated with the A-Keyword(s), that topic will be displayed immediately. Alternatively, if the help system finds more than one topic, it will suggest the user to select which topic to display.

To insert a hyperlink with the ALink macro into a topic:

1.In the word processor, put the cursor where you want to insert a hyperlink.

2.On the Insert tab, click Hyperlink.

3.In the dialog, in the left sidebar, click Macro.

4.In the Text to display box, enter the hyperlink text.

5.In the Command box, select "ALink".

6.In the A-Keywords box, enter one or more A-Keywords (one A-Keyword per line) that the ALink macro will search for.
If you need to specify a nested A-Keyword, you can use the following syntax: Keyword1,Keyword2,...,KeywordN, where Keyword1 and Keyword2 are parent A-Keywords containing the KeywordN A-Keyword that you want to access.

7.Click OK.

Remark: The ALink macro is supported by the HTML Help (CHM) output format only.