Browse sequences display groups of topics in a specific sequence. Once a browse sequence becomes part of a Viewer title, the << and >> buttons below the Viewer menu bar let users move back and forth between related topics.
The Browse buttons become active whenever Viewer displays topics coded with a browse sequence. At the beginning of the sequence, only the >> button is active. At the end of the sequence, only the << button is active. In the middle of the sequence, both buttons are active.
If a title has only one browse sequence, each topic in the sequence is assigned a plus-sign (+) footnote with a browse-sequence number. The topics in the sequence are displayed in the order of their browse-sequence numbers. If the topics don't have browse-sequence numbers, they are displayed in their order of appearance in the topic file.
Titles with more than one browse sequence use sequence names to identify the different sequences. Each topic in the sequence is assigned a plus-sign (+) footnote giving the sequence name along with the browse-sequence number. Topics in each sequence are displayed in order of their browse-sequence numbers. If all the topics in a sequence have the same sequence number, the topics in the sequence appear in their order of appearance in the topic file.
Browse sequences are invisible in the title. They simply specify the order in which users view topics when choosing the >> and << buttons.
Browse sequences are authored using a plus-sign (+) footnote, as shown in the following illustration.
+{\footnote format-codes {format-codes +} [sequence-name:][sequence number]}
format-codes
RTF codes for paragraph and character formatting.
sequence-name
Name identifying a browse sequence in a title with multiple browse sequences. The sequence name can be omitted if the title has only one browse sequence.
sequence-number
Number specifying the location of the topic in the browse sequence. If a title has only one browse sequence, this number is optional. If a title has more then one browse sequence, the name and number are both required. If all topics in a browse sequence have the same sequence number, or if no sequence numbers are used, the topics are displayed in their order of appearance in the file.
Sequence numbers can include both numbers and alphabetic characters. When a Viewer title is being built, browse sequences are sorted using an alphabetic sort rather than a numeric sort. Thus, each sequence number in a sequence must use the same number of characters, so that lower-sequence numbers always appear before higher ones.
The following example inserts sequence number “015” as part of the “wa” browse sequence using a plus-sign footnote:
+{\footnote \pard\plain \s245 \fs20 {\fs16\up6 +} wa:015}