Context-Specific Help Content

The ditamap requires specific markup to implement context-sensitive help.

Each <topicmeta> element that wraps a <resourceid> element may optionally contain one <searchtitle> element or one <shortdesc> element, or both (one of each):

The <searchtitle> element is used to supply the value of the title attribute on the <context> element in the Eclipse context XML file.

The <shortdesc> element is used to supply the content of the <description> element in the Eclipse context XML file. For example:

    <topicref navtitle="label attribute in contexts.xml topic element"
        href="path/to/topic.xml">
        <topicmeta>
            <searchtitle>Optional text to override the help About title.</searchtitle>
            <shortdesc>Text for context description.</shortdesc>
            <resourceid id="help_context_ID_string"/>
        </topicmeta>
    </topicref>

Note: The <searchtitle>, <shortdesc>, and <resourceid> elements must appear in the <topicmeta> element in the order shown above.

A DITA map that contains the example shown above produces the following content in an Eclipse context XML file:

    <contexts>
        ...
        <context id="help_context_ID_string"
            title="Optional text to override the help About title.">
            <description>Text for context description.</description>
            <topic label="label attribute in contexts.xml topic element"
                href="PLUGINS_ROOT/doc_plugin_ID/path/to/topic.xml"/>
        </context>
        ...
    </contexts>

where doc_plugin_ID is the value of the id attribute on the <map> element.

The following illustration shows how the <searchtitle> and <shortdesc> elements in a DITA map can be transformed into markup in the Eclipse context XML file, and how those items in the context XML file provide the context-specific content rendered in the Help view.

Image shows how content in the <searchtitle> and <shortdesc> elements in a DITA map contribute context-specific content for the Eclipse context XML file.