Global Project Linking - Help with Template issues

[jfischer]

I'm looking for some help with global project linking and topic templates. I may also be looking for some best practice advice.

I have multiple Flare projects, one for each software application I create end-user guides for. I just started a new knowledge base project, which is going to include some content from the other projects, as well as new content. For the KB project, I am using Flare's KB template as my standard topic template. All other projects use a different template.

I tried out the global project linking feature, and it appears to give me the single-sourcing I need (it's actually pretty cool). However, the "linked" topic files are using only a portion of the template. It seems as though the linked topics take on only those characteristics of the template to which they can find a match. All other elements in the topic template are not being included in the linked topic files.

Specifically, I wanted to have the articles display certain metadata, such as article #, application name/version, date, author, and contributors. This is in the template file.

After I perform the global project import, the files take on only part of the template, according to style matching. For example, source headings take on the look of the template, as well as any stylesheet formatting. But the metadata isn't there...

If I add the missing elements to the linked files, they will only be overwritten when I re-import. If I never re-import, then I lose my single-sourcing. Likewise, if I add this metadata to the master page, it means that the metadata will not change across articles, which it should.

Here are some screenshots; one showing the KB template, and the other showing a linked file:

kb_template.png

kb_linked_file.png

Moving forward, does anyone have any advice on how to include this data in my KB articles while still being able to bring in other topics through global project import? Do I need to go a different route entirely?

Any advice would help, thanks!

- Jennifer

[DocuWil]

In this post you can see how I go around with these kind of stuff:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=12331

[jfischer]

Thanks for your post. Did you place conditional text in your source files that would only show up in the project output you linked them to? I was thinking of testing this. I'm going to try out your method, I'm sure it will only help. Thanks again!

[DocuWil]

Hi Jennifer,

In the source I have a few condition tags set.
Only Print Only and Screen Only.
Advise: Make a very little test project to try. If it works out, make a good plan about what you put in the global linking source.