Branching indicators

The graphics that appear in branched maps help you keep track of the documents that have changed.

When you create a new branch you are prompted for a tag, which the system applies to the new map. As you branch the topics and sub-maps within this root map, they are also given this tag. You can see branch tags wherever documents are displayed: Search Results, Todo List, etc

As you work on a branched map – changing the contents of topics, or adding new documents to the map – you’ll notice asterisks in the Title column, whenever the map is open in the DITA map view. This lets you quickly identify the documents that differ from their counterparts in the Authoring cycle.

If at some point you merge the topics (or the entire map) back into the original version, then these asterisks will be removed – if the merge is successful. However, if the original documents in the Authoring cycle have changed, the system will not perform the merge. In this case the asterisks will turn red, to alert you to this fact. You can remove the “needs merging” mark at a later date, after you’ve merged the documents yourself.