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Use Chunking to Control Subsections

You can use Paligo's chunking feature to control whether a topic can be used as a subsection or to appear as a separate web page in the HTML / HTML5 output. The term "chunk" means that a topic has to be on its own. So if a topic is set to xinfo:chunk with the value set to:

  • Yes - the topic cannot be a subsection inside another topic and will always be on a separate page when published. It cannot be a subsection on another page.

  • No - the topic can be a subsection inside another topic.

Note

Learn more about chunking settings, see Chunking.

To set the chunking value:

  1. Select the topic or component in the Content Manager to open it in the Editor.

    Content Manager in Paligo. It shows the Documents section contains an Acme 100 Topics folder. Inside the folder there is a publication and many topics, including "Connect to Network (100).

    Alternatively, you can Create a Topic and edit that.

  2. Select the section element in the Element Structure Menu.

    Close up of Element Structure Menu. It shows the section element is selected and the Go to element option is selected.

  3. Select Go to element.

  4. Add the xinfo:chunk attribute in the Element Attributes Panel and set its value to:

    • Yes to prevent the topic from being a subsection.

    • No to allow the topic to be a subsection.

    Element attributes side panel. It shows the section element has an xinfo:chunk attribute that is set to yes.

  5. Select Save. Save icon.

Important

The xinfo:chunk value takes priority over the Chunk section depth setting in the layout editor. For example, if you set the Chunk section depth to 3, it normally means that any topics at level 4 or below will become subsections of the "parent" level 3 topic. However, if your level 4 topic has xinfo:chunk = yes, the level 4 topic will not be included as a subsection of its "parent" level 3 topic. Instead, it will be a separate topic.

There are two ways to use chunking (and they can be combined):

  • Set the default level at which you want topics to become a chunk under "TOC and chunking" in the Layout Editor.

  • Add the xinfo:chunk attribute to the section element in a topic via the Element Attributes Panel.

Example 1. Chunk section depth and xinfo:chunk used in combination

If you have a publication called "Mars Travel Manual" and you have organized it so that there are topics at different levels.

Image shows structure view of Mars Travel Manual publication. There are topics in the publication and some are at the top-level, some are at the second level, and some are at the third level.

You are going to publish to HTML5 and your layout has Chunk section depth set to 2.

HTML5 layout with the Chunk section depth option set to 2.

When you publish, the output has the top-level and second-level topics as separate pages. The third-level pages and lower are subsections.

A publication structure with 3 tiers. At the top is a topic called "The Mission Control Center" and is it labelled as 1. At the next level down is a topic called "Command Center" and it is labelled as 2. At the next level down are two more topics and these are labelled as 3.

So if we look at the "The Mission Control Center" topic and its lower-level topics, the output will work like this:

  1. "The Mission Control Center" is a top-level topic. It is higher than the Chunk section depth setting of 2, so it has its own page in the output.

  2. "Command Center" is a second-level topic. It is at the same level as the Chunk section depth setting of 2, so it has its own page in the output.

  3. "Controls System" and "Control Room" are third-level topics. They are below the Chunk section depth setting of 2, and so they do not get their own page. Instead, they are subsections on the "Command Center" topic, as that is their immediate "parent" in the publication structure.

Note

The green dotted line in the image represents the Chunk section depth setting of 2.

But what if you wanted "Controls System" to be a subsection of "Command Center" and "Control Room" to have its own page? To do that, you would set the "Control Room" topic to have the attribute:

xinfo:chunk = yes

With this in place, Paligo will give the "Controls System" topic its own page in the published output, as xinfo:chunk takes priority over the Chunk section depth setting. So the result is that the output has:

  • "The Mission Control Center" and "Command Center" topics have their own pages as they are at a higher level than the Chunk section depth.

  • "Control Room" has its own page as it has xinfo:chunk=yes. The Chunk section depth does not apply to this topic.

  • "Controls System" is a subsection of "Command Center" as it does not have xinfo:chunk=yes and so the Chunk section depth does apply.