The Same Topic in Different Languages

As evident from the examples in this chapter, creating context sensitive help in multiple languages involves assigning multiple html files per a single Valuemation element, one for each supported language. The following points provide an explanation for this aspect of help topic assignments.

• Standard Valuemation help is created using specialized help authoring and localization tools. Each topic in the help output is represented by an html file, the names of these files correspond to the unique IDs used for topic identification during authoring and localization.
• The 'Help Topic Assignment' catalog and editor display topic name and ID. Although topic names are helpful in identifying the right content, it is important to remember that, unlike the IDs, topic names are not unique. That is why it is advisable to always confirm that the correct topic is being linked, e.g. by opening the help in a browser, locating the topic and verifying its ID, or directly in the authoring application (technical writers only).
• Files representing the same topic in different languages have different ID, i.e. different file names. For example, topic 'Action Scheduler' in English is represented by file '26400.htm' while its German counterpart 'Aktionen-Scheduler' is represented by file '29444.htm'. Analogically, the same topic in other languages will be represented by multiple, different html files. Consequently, a help topic assignment consists of identification of the Valuemation element (see 'Hierarchy of Assignments' here) and a set of topic assignments, one for each supported language for which a suitable help topic exists.
• In order to assign help topics in multiple languages, it is necessary to know which topics represent language variants of one and the same topic. This can be discovered either by comparing topics in individual help versions or, preferably, by searching for relationships/localizations directly inside the authoring tool (technical writers only).