Documentation for IT solutions using the custom Eclipse Information Center, part 3rd

Part 3rd: Anticipate and manage changes to reused content

Overview

Toolkit for custom and reusable Solution information supports the collection of several different types of content to be published in a customized solution information center. Content can include Web pages, local files such as Office documents, RSS and ATOM feeds, exported Lotus notes® documents, and Eclipse document Plug-ins (that is, "books" in the Toolbox).

For some content types, you can include a copy of the content or a link to the location of the content (such as a Web site or wiki). The following table summarizes which methods each content type supports.

files (demo, show, sample) tr>

web Page
no
no
books (Eclipse Document plugin)	no

Include a link to a Web page

In the previous section of this series, when you provide a link to a Web page, you can configure a description for the page, such as the title, URL, Summary, and keywords for the page. This description is used to generate an HTML page for the Solution Information Center. The generated page provides links to Web pages that are hosted elsewhere.

For example, Figure 1 shows a generated page that provides a link to the latest version of Rational®edge magazine. The second browser window shows how the page will look when the user clicks the link in the URL format.

Figure 1. Link to a Web page

The resulting page is straightforward, because the Toolbox user can provide a description of the Rational Edge in a very small amount of time. However, one of the advantages of linking to a Web page is that you can personalize this description to meet the needs of your Information center users. For example, if you want to deliver this information center to a specific user, you can design the page that you are linking to to fit the user's IT project in advance.