Create Relationships Between Topics

The DITA map offers the possibility of grouping different types of links between topics in a relationship table instead of specifying the links of each topic in that topic.
  1. Open the DITA map file where you want to create the relationship table. Use the action Open that is available on the toolbar of the DITA Maps Manager view.
  2. Place the cursor at the location of the relationship table.
  3. Run the action Insert a DITA reltable. The action is available on the Author toolbar, on the menu DITA > Table and on the Table submenu of the contextual menu of the DITA map editor. This action displays the Insert Relationship Table dialog.
  4. Set the parameters of the relationship table that will be created: the number of rows, the number of columns, a table title (optional), a table header (optional).
  5. Press OK in the Insert Table dialog.
  6. Set the type of the topics in the header of each column. The header of the table (the relheader element) already contains a relcolspec element for each table column. You should set the value of the attribute type of each relcolspec element to a value like concept, task, reference. When you click in the header cell of a column (that is a relcolspec element) you can see all the attributes of that relcolspec element including the type attribute in the Attributes view. You can edit the attribute type in this view.
  7. Place the cursor in a table cell and run the action Insert Topic Reference for inserting a topic reference in that cell. The action is available on the Author toolbar, on the menu DITA > Insert and on the Insert submenu of the contextual menu.
  8. Optionally for adding a new row to the table / removing an existing row you should run the action Insert Row/ Delete Row. The actions are available on the Author toolbar, on the menu DITA > Table and on the Table submenu of the contextual menu.
  9. Optionally for adding a new column to the table / removing an existing column you should run the action Insert Column/ Delete Column. The actions are available on the Author toolbar, on the menu DITA > Table and on the Table submenu of the contextual menu.