Suggestions on how to "hide" UI-based topics in online Help TOC?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Donna Barbieri reports: <<I am working as a contractor at a company  
that had a Tech Writing intern... This intern produced an entire  
WebHelp system for the application. However, the Help system is 100%  
UI specific. Topics such as "using XYZ" really include information  
about what is on a particular screen. I have been tasked with  
creating "usable" Help for first time users AND with keeping the  
existing Help for a release in the next two weeks.>>

That's not hard to do: simply create a new master topic that groups  
all the existing help as a "Reference" section, organized based on  
the dialog box or field names, then add a new "Tasks" master topic  
that you will create to group all the high-level tasks. You can then  
link from the task to the corresponding reference material wherever  
it's necessary for readers to learn the details of a particular  
dialog. From the reader perspective, they'll see the two obvious  
entry points into the help system: task-based if they need to learn  
how to do a task, and reference-based if they already know the task  
but need details of individual steps or fields or whatever.

It's less efficient than combining the two into a seamlessly  
integrated system, but (a) you state that you don't have a choice  
about retaining the reference information in its present form and (b)  
you only have two weeks to get the job done, so you don't have time  
to fight this particular battle. For subsequent revisions, you may be  
able to persuade them to merge the two sections, but for now, this is  
at least a workable alternative.

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www.geoff-hart.com
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