Adding Website Sources

To add a new website to your project, click on the Add button from the Websites tab. This will cause the following dialog to be displayed.

Use this dialog to specify your Website settings.

Website Setting Description

Root Path URL The top-level web address of the website you would like to document.

Home Page URL The home page of the website.

Additional URLs URLs of additional pages you would like to document.

Website Setting	Description
Root Path URL	The top-level web address of the website you would like to document.
Home Page URL	The home page of the website.
Additional URLs	URLs of additional pages you would like to document.

Authentication Options

If your website requires you to login before accessing certain pages, TechWriter may have difficulty access those pages unless you use this dialog to specify the login information.

Authentication Setting Description

All or part of this website requires user authentication Check this box if you are required to login for access to all or part of the site.

Login Page URL The URL of a page that will prompt the user to login.

Logout Page URL The URL of a page that will cause the user to logout.

Username The username value to use to login.

Password The password value to use to login.

Login using Basic Authentication Select this login method if your site uses basic authentication.

Login using Form-based Authentication Select this login method if yoru site uses forms-based authentication.

Name of Username Form Element Specifies the name of the username form element for forms-based authentication.

Name of Password Form Element Specifies the name of the password form element for forms-based authentication.

Authentication Setting	Description
All or part of this website requires user authentication	Check this box if you are required to login for access to all or part of the site.
Login Page URL	The URL of a page that will prompt the user to login.
Logout Page URL	The URL of a page that will cause the user to logout.
Username	The username value to use to login.
Password	The password value to use to login.
Login using Basic Authentication	Select this login method if your site uses basic authentication.
Login using Form-based Authentication	Select this login method if yoru site uses forms-based authentication.
Name of Username Form Element	Specifies the name of the username form element for forms-based authentication.
Name of Password Form Element	Specifies the name of the password form element for forms-based authentication.

Instead of explicitly listing the URL of every page you want to document, TechWriter can also discover pages on its own using a technique similar search engine spiders. The options that control this feature are displayed on the next page of the wizard.

Use this dialog to specify your Page Discovery options.

Page Discovery Option Description

Enable page crawling Check this box if you would like TechWriter to scan pages looking for links to other pages.

Limit crawl depth Check this box to limit the number of nested levels that TechWriter will scan.

Limit crawl breadth Check this box to limit the number of links per page that TechWriter will scan.

Dynamic URL Parameters A comma-delimited list of URL parameters that TechWriter should use to uniquely identify each page.

Page Discovery Option	Description
Enable page crawling	Check this box if you would like TechWriter to scan pages looking for links to other pages.
Limit crawl depth	Check this box to limit the number of nested levels that TechWriter will scan.
Limit crawl breadth	Check this box to limit the number of links per page that TechWriter will scan.
Dynamic URL Parameters	A comma-delimited list of URL parameters that TechWriter should use to uniquely identify each page.

Tip: Page crawling on large websites can cause extended processing times and result in a very large amount of topics. This can be avoided by setting proper crawl limits.

The last page of options for Website sources is shown below.

Use this dialog to specify your Screen Capture options.

Screen Capture Option Description

Enable screen capture Check this option if you want to included screenshots of your web pages in the documentation.

Screen width The width of the screen to use for the screenshot.

Screen height The height of the screen to use for the screenshot.

Capture delay The amount of time in seconds to wait before capturing the screen.

Screen Capture Option	Description
Enable screen capture	Check this option if you want to included screenshots of your web pages in the documentation.
Screen width	The width of the screen to use for the screenshot.
Screen height	The height of the screen to use for the screenshot.
Capture delay	The amount of time in seconds to wait before capturing the screen.

Tip: Setting a capture delay is important for allowing dynamic page components such as Flash and AJAX to initialize. However, care should be taken when setting this option to avoid lengthy processing times. If your website does not contain any dynamic components, you can set this option to 0.