topichead

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Version 1.2

Document
Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Version 1.2

The <topichead> element provides a title-only entry in a navigation map, which should appear as a heading when the map is rendered as a table of contents. In print contexts it should also appear as a heading in the rendered content.

Beginning with DITA 1.2, the navtitle can be specified by using a <navtitle> element within the <topicmeta> element, so the <topichead> element no longer requires the navtitle attribute. In order to ensure backward compatibility with earlier versions of DITA, the new <navtitle> element is not required. However, a <topichead> element must contain either a navtitle attribute or a <topicmeta> element that contains a <navtitle> element. DITA processors should generate a warning if a navigation title is not specified.

Contains

Note: These models represent only the default document types distributed by OASIS. Actual content models will differ with each new document type.
Doctype Content model
map (base), bookmap ( (topicmeta) (optional) then (anchor or data or data-about or navref or topicref or anchorref or keydef or mapref or topicgroup or topichead or topicset or topicsetref) (any number) )
map (technical content) ( (topicmeta) (optional) then (anchor or data or data-about or navref or topicref or (anchorref or keydef or mapref or topicgroup or topichead or topicset or topicsetref) or (glossref) ) (any number) )
classifyMap ( (topicmeta) (optional) then (anchor or data or data-about or navref or topicref or (topicsubject or topicapply) or (anchorref or keydef or mapref or topicgroup or topichead or topicset or topicsetref) ) (any number) )
subjectScheme ( (topicmeta) (optional) then (anchor or data or data-about or navref or topicref or (anchorref or keydef or mapref or topicgroup or topichead or topicset or topicsetref) ) (any number) )
learningBookmap, learningMap ( (topicmeta) (optional) then (anchor or data or data-about or navref or topicref or anchorref or keydef or mapref or topicgroup or topichead or topicset or topicsetref or learningObject or learningGroup) (any number) )

Inheritance

+ map/topicref mapgroup-d/topichead

Example

Note that in the following example, the first <topichead> element uses a <navtitle> element to provide the title, while the second <topichead> element uses a navtitle attribute. This is only to illustrate that both uses are valid; in general, the element is preferred over the attribute.

<map>
  <topichead>
    <topicmeta><navtitle>Computers</navtitle></topicmeta>
    <topicref href="eniac.dita"/>
    <topicref href="system360.dita"/>
    <topicref href="pdp8.dita"/>
  </topichead>
  <topichead navtitle="Books">
    <topicref href="hardback.dita"/>
    <topicref href="paperback.dita"/>
  </topichead>
</map>

Attributes

Name Description Data Type Default Value Required?
navtitle Specifies the title of the topic as it will appear in the navigation or tables of contents that are generated from the map. Beginning with DITA 1.2, the preferred way to specify the navigation title in a map is with the navtitle element, available inside the topicmeta element. CDATA #IMPLIED No
copy-to Use the copy-to attribute on the <topicref> element to provide a different file name for a particular instance of the topic in the map (for example, to separate out the different versions of the topic, rather than combining them on output). The links and navigation associated with that instance will point to a copy of the topic with the file name you specified.

Use the <linktext> and <shortdesc> in the <topicref>'s <topicmeta> to provide a unique name and short description for the new copy.

CDATA #IMPLIED No
topicref-atts attribute group (collection-type, processing-role, type, scope, locktitle, format, linking, toc, print, search, chunk) A set of related attributes. See topicref-atts, topicref-atts-no-toc, and topicref-atts-without-format attribute groups.      
univ-atts attribute group (includes select-atts, id-atts, and localization-atts groups) A set of related attributes, described in univ-atts attribute group      
global-atts attribute group (xtrf, xtrc) A set of related attributes, described in global-atts attribute group      
class, outputclass Common attributes described in Other common DITA attributes