3. Creating and Managing Tomes

3.1. What is a tome?

A tome is defined in the dictionary as "a book, especially a large, heavy, scholarly one."

We use the term "tome" to refer to a named container of content, consisting of nested headings, and the various text, image and other content under them.

Typically you would create a tome for a particular product or service, to hold instructions or other technical information.

3.2. Creating a tome

To create a tome, go to the "My Tomes" page and click the "New Tome" button.

Tome names must be between 4 and 100 characters long, and may contain only upper or lowercase letters, numbers, or dashes.

The name you choose will form the address for the tome, for example a tome named "userguide", has the address:

http://userguide.tome.host

(the limitation on the characters that tome names can contain is because the tome name is used as the subdomain of the tome address)

Because the tome name is used in URLs, you should ensure that it is something that is broadly descriptive or relevant to the content.

You can change a tome name later, as long as the new name you want is not already taken. However, it is strongly advised not to do this once a tome is established, as existing links in search engines, forums and so on to your tome will no longer work. It makes sense to think carefully about your tome name and get it right first time.

3.3. Importing a tome

Some DocBook XML files exported from third-party applications may not be recreated in their entirety within tome.host, depending on what features and types of sections they contain.

You can import a DocBook XML document to create a new tome. Because tome.host can also export a tome as DocBook XML, you can use this to clone a tome and create a new tome based on the original. To start the process, click the 'import' button at the top of the 'My Tomes' page, name your new tome, and browse to select the file.

3.4. Opening a tome for editing

In the listings within "My Tomes", click on the name of the tome to view that tome.

3.5. Managing tomes

Go to "My Tomes" to list your tomes. Admins of a tome will see a full set of options, whereas contributors and editors can only view/edit tome content.

Deleted tomes will display on the system and can be undeleted for a period of a week or so, before they will be cleaned up permanently.