Flare 8 Niggles

[nickatwork]

Yeah, I meant HTML5 as in the build type from Flare, not as in the coding standard. My bad.

[EricRausin]

Thanks, Rob. The tooltip trick worked like a charm.

[NorthEast]

I've found a few issues with the HTML5 skin editor.
After spending a few hours designing a new skin, so far I've found about 5 skin styles that don't work properly (as intended).

[Phlawm53]

A couple of small annoyances that appear to be Flare 8 specific.

1. IF the Quick Access Toolbar ("QAT") is a key component of the new ribbon U.I., THEN please provide a way for the user to order the icons according to his or her preference. At present, the only way to arrange icons on the QAT in a specific sequence is to delete all icons, then re-add them in the desired sequence. Pah!

2. In Flare 7, I recall that I could easily tell Flare to open a particular project by default. So I didn't need to manually re-select / re-open my current Flare project each time I started the program. That functionality appears to have been removed in Flare 8(?)

[Robotman]

When alt-tabbing between Flare and any other app, the cursor in Flare loses focus. This wasn't the case with v7. It's been confirmed by MC. If anybody else finds this an issue I'd ask that you submit it as a bug.

[RamonS]

If anybody else finds this an issue I'd ask that you submit it as a bug.

Please submit it as a bug no matter what - because it is a bug. Bug submissions should not depend on approval ratings.

[crdmerge]

Still no synch between editors (select a word in the XML Editor and go to that selected word in the Text Editor, and vice versa).

You probably don't realize what a big deal this is unless you've converted from a different tool that does provide it! Sigh...it's really tough navigating the code in topics with 2K lines or more, with a handful of tables and even more lists!


Leon

[LTinker68]

Still no synch between editors (select a word in the XML Editor and go to that selected word in the Text Editor, and vice versa).

What I'd prefer is an option to turn on a split screen where you have the topic code on a top pane and the WYSIWYG view in the bottom pane (or left and right respectively) that keeps place between the two views so you can easily switch between them. Both Dreamweaver and SharePoint Designer have similar functionality.

[Elrick]

Flare 8 is opening minimised for me. It's not a great problem, because I only need to click on it but it is a niggle as previous versions of Flare didn't do this. I can't find a setting anywhere that tells it to open minimised. The desktop shortcut setting is to run in 'Normal Window'.

Before I log it as a bug, does anyone have any ideas?

I'm on Windows XP SP3 if that's relevant.

[wbrisett]

Found a DITA import related bug. It seems they changed the behavior of the DITA import when it comes to tables and table titles. Both <title> and <table><title> are being set to the same heading. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why my table titles disappeared until I looked at the code. Madcap support has confirmed this bug. For now the workaround seems to be to import your project in Flare 7 and then work in Flare 8 after the conversion.

Wayne

[kevinmcl]

Regarding Flare 8 not seeming to respond to everybody the same way, I've had version 8 for a week, and I'm on my third install.
I keep checking Help > Check for updates, hoping for the 8.0.1 stability release, but so far, nuthin'.

Anyway, one of my niggles might be just a problem between the chair and the keyboard...

I've been trying out some new layout and color-scheme options in the HTML5 skin. As I play with different combinations of the corporate branding colors, I make new versions of logos, backgrounds, etc.

In the editor, you select (usually) BackgroundImage for whatever layout item you're tweaking, and that provides a drop-down list of graphic files you've previously imported, as well as (default) and Browse options. I have several gripes about that.

One is that the list is getting longer and longer, and I don't see a way (via the interface) to clean it up.
Another gripe/niggle is when I tweak a graphic object slightly (in Paint or PhotoShop or Illustrator, etc.) sometimes I know I won't want the old version, so I just save over the old with the new. That is, same filename. Unlike how it used to work for CONTENT images, Flare doesn't instantly pick up the changed version. It seems to have an internal copy of skin graphic components. If I "Save all" and rebuild-republish, the output has the previous appearance of the element, even though the source file has only the new appearance.

BUT, when I go back to BackgroundImage for that element and deliberately choose to Browse to the source file (refreshed version), Flare warns me that there's already a file by that name. (Of course there is; there doesn't seem to be any way to clean up the list... see above.) Fine, I say, copy over it. Flare accepts. I "Save all" again, build again, publish again.... and the OLD look is still there in my published output. I have to exit Flare 8 and restart it, before a button or logo or icon shows up as the source file currently has it.


Oh, there's another niggle. With previous Flare versions, I'd double-click my flprj file and Flare would open with that project populating the interface. Now, either double-clicking the file or double-clicking the Flare desktop icon launches Flare with the start page and a list of recently opened projects to pick from.

That doesn't work so well when I'm renaming projects or project directories or making copies (under modified names) as I tweak the appearance.

Also, I have Flare 7.2 still on my system. When I right-click a .flprj file and click "Open with..." I get two identical-looking Flare objects to choose from. For a while, one was Flare 7 and one was Flare 8, now (after my second-reinstall of Flare 8.), both of them launch Flare 8, even for an old flprj from last year. I can, of course, go launch Flare 7.2 directly and then have it open a project, but as with the related niggle above, it's an additional step.

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, .NET Framework 4.

-k

[NorthEast]

In the editor, you select (usually) BackgroundImage for whatever layout item you're tweaking, and that provides a drop-down list of graphic files you've previously imported, as well as (default) and Browse options. I have several gripes about that.

One is that the list is getting longer and longer, and I don't see a way (via the interface) to clean it up.
Another gripe/niggle is when I tweak a graphic object slightly (in Paint or PhotoShop or Illustrator, etc.) sometimes I know I won't want the old version, so I just save over the old with the new. That is, same filename. Unlike how it used to work for CONTENT images, Flare doesn't instantly pick up the changed version. It seems to have an internal copy of skin graphic components. If I "Save all" and rebuild-republish, the output has the previous appearance of the element, even though the source file has only the new appearance.

When you select an image for the skin, the image data is actually embedded inside the skin file itself; so it's not linked in any way to your original file.

When you build the output, all the unused images in the skin will be included too. If you want to remove unused files from the skin, I'd first suggest backing up the skin, then open the skin file in text mode. You can remove the images by deleting the whole Resource tag for that image; you need to delete from the opening tag to the closing tag; e.g. <Resource Name="yourImage.png">...</Resource>

[LTinker68]

I've logged a bug report about this, but has anyone else noticed that search terms aren't highlighted in topics in HTML5 outputs? I even created the span classes mentioned in the help, but no go. I tried it MadCap's Flare 8 online help, too, and don't see highlighting either. I'm wondering if the intention was to not offer that option, because there's no associated toolbar icon for turning off highlighting like there is for WebHelp.

[kevinmcl]

Thanks.

Does Flare provide any way to see a summary of which images are actually used - as opposed to just left-overs from days, weeks, months, years of tinkering?

The dialog appears to show all images that have been included over time, not just for the current element, but for all Skin elements.

It could be a long process to browse every style element in the Skin to make a list of all the currently-used image filenames. Well, less-so for me, since I don't have the Feedback add-on, but still...

Also... without me trying it and breaking something... do you know what happens if you edit in text mode and delete one that's being used? Does Flare sensibly revert to a default?

[kevinmcl]

Lisa,

Thanks for the reminder. I'd wondered about that.

The highlighting ranged from annoyance to very useful... sometimes within a span of two minutes.... So having the highlight AND the ability to switch it off were useful.

-k

[Phlawm53]

@kevinmcl

One is that the list is getting longer and longer, and I don't see a way (via the interface) to clean it up.

Note sure if I understand exactly what you're saying here, but note that — unfortunately — Flare stuffs a lot of project-specific information into the Windows Registry. That in turn means that data is retained from each and every obsolete or superseded Flare project, and is displayed in a list of choices for all projects. Ugh!

The alternative to these Lists Eternal is to (uh oh) remove them from the Windows Registry. Editing the Registry is of course perilous, even if one is only going to HKEY_CURRENT_USER —> Software —> Madcap Software simply for purposes of locating and deleting obsolete Data from Output Folder, Search String, Find / Replace strings, et alia.

With previous Flare versions, I'd double-click my flprj file and Flare would open with that project populating the interface. Now,…

Yes, I too have noticed that Flare 8 (ahem) "improves" the startup workflow. And also apparently does away with the ability to define a Default project that's automatically opened when Flare is started. (I also wouldn't mind being able to choose whether or not Flare compelled me to close that "darn" Start Page every single time I start the program, but that's another issue entirely…)

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley
SFO

[kevinmcl]

Another niggle:

I don't know if this is specific to Flare 8, or just a "bug" that's been in Flare for a while.

In the Skin styles, many elements have Background components:

- BackgroundColor
- BackgroundImage
- BackgroundGradient

I'm not clear on what the behavior is supposed to be - possibly because Flare wants to exit and restart before showing some Skin graphic updates.... But I think I have the idea of precedence and "failover", and it's not what I'd hoped.

Why don't some, if not most, of the Skin styles have a setting for "repeat" of a chosen graphic image?

I know that I've seen and used the "repeat" (or the NOT-repeat) settings in a couple of places in Flare.
The way the Main Page background is done, for example, I'd like to just set a thin accent color strip at the top or one side and have the rest of the page background (all the way down to the bottom of the browser window) show just the BackgroundColor, or just the BackgroundGradient. But when I set a small graphic, it repeats to fill the background. I have to limit my design, and I have to make very large graphics if I don't want them to visually repeat in a large browser window. Or maybe I'm going about this all wrong.

For example, I originally kept a background color similar to the dark gray default (with a white-on-gray logo), but I wanted a thin orange grace-line across the top (orange is one of our corporate brand colors). When I created a two-color graphic to accomplish that, it looked the way I wanted across the top of the page, but as it repeated down the page, the skinny, exposed area between the topic frame and the navigation frame looked like a charcoal-and-orange barber pole. I "fixed" that by making the graphic image too big to repeat, but that's a kludge.

AS WELL, is there an HTML5 limitation that all color gradients must be vertical? Why can't I have a horizontal or a diagonal gradient on my background or my button/tab/field/??

-k

[JohnB]

I've logged a bug report about this, but has anyone else noticed that search terms aren't highlighted in topics in HTML5 outputs? I even created the span classes mentioned in the help, but no go. I tried it MadCap's Flare 8 online help, too, and don't see highlighting either. I'm wondering if the intention was to not offer that option, because there's no associated toolbar icon for turning off highlighting like there is for WebHelp.

Lisa, I asked about this at the HTML5 webinar. I had noticed it earlier also. It's absolutely a must for one of our projects in particular.

The response was: "The search highlighting is not used in HTML5." Well it is (the Mark element), so they must have meant it's not available in Flare's HTML5 Help output.

I also noticed that the Ctrl-F browser option for searching a topic works differently. In house, Help users use IE exclusively. And if you don't expand all togglers before searching, the toggler content isn't searched. That's also a change from version 7. At lease for IE. So, kind of a double whammy here.

- John

[LTinker68]

I also noticed that the Ctrl-F browser option for searching a topic works differently also. In house, Help users use IE exclusively. If you don't expand all togglers before searching, the toggler content isn't searched. That's also a change from version 7. At lease for IE. So, kind of a double whammy here.

Ugh, hadn't noticed that yet. It's also a problem for FF11 -- I had to expand a toggler in order for Firefox's built-in search to find its content. I'll submit a bug report, too.

[LTinker68]

Anyone else having problems with synchronizing the TOC in the HTML5 output? I have a mini-TOC proxy in my welcome topic and clicking on one of those links jumps to the topic with the TOC synchronizing, but clicking on a link in a mini-TOC in other books doesn't work. Likewise, using the next/previous toolbar icons advances the topics but the TOC doesn't sync with it.

I really really like the look of the HTML5 output and some of its effects, but some of the core functionality has some serious problems or isn't even there.

[Phlawm53]

I'll put this out to see if anyone else is having the same problem: Renaming a CSS class doesn't rename the class.

STEPS:

1. In Flare 8, in the CSS Stylesheet Editor, right-click a CSS selector then choose Add Class. Flare 8 displays the New Style tool.

2. In the New Style tool, type a class name. For example, right-click the h1 selector and add a class named Example01.

The Stylesheet Editor associates the new class name with the selector.

3. Right click the class name created in Step 2, above, choose Rename, then in the Rename Class tool type a new name for the class. For example, rename Example01 to Example02.

The Flare 8 Stylesheet Editor does NOT rename the class: Instead, it creates a new class. In this example, it creates a second new class named Example02.

4. Select the class the Stylesheet Editor created by mistake (in this example, Example02), then choose Delete.

The Stylesheet Editor displays an error message of the form, "The style [Example02] cannot be deleted since it is inherited and not defined in this stylesheet".

5. Close the Stylesheet Editor without saving the changes to unsnarl the mess.

This is a consistent error for me — I've already submitted a bug on it. (In fact, it appears to me that the Flare 8 Stylesheet Editor seems to have acquired a number of new "niggles"…?)

------
One of the things I've used a text editor to learn since originally submitting this is: Despite having Print Medium selected, when Flare erroneously creates rather than renames a class, it adds that erroneous new class to the Default Medium portion of the CSS file…

Cheers & hope this helps,
RBV
SFO

[wclass]

There does seem to be a problem with renaming subclasses, but I don't get the errors/message you do.
I can rename a class alright if it is in the default medium. If I try to rename one in the print medium it just doesn't change - no extra class, no change, and no message. For reference, though, I usually use an external editor rather than the Flare one to update the stylesheets - we had an expert create it originally before Flare was even invented and have just stuck to the same habit, so I tend not to notice a lot of the style sheet problems.

[nisaga]

There does seem to be a problem with renaming subclasses, but I don't get the errors/message you do.
I can rename a class alright if it is in the default medium. If I try to rename one in the print medium it just doesn't change - no extra class, no change, and no message. For reference, though, I usually use an external editor rather than the Flare one to update the stylesheets - we had an expert create it originally before Flare was even invented and have just stuck to the same habit, so I tend not to notice a lot of the style sheet problems.

I'm pretty sure that I tried renaming classes in Flare 7 and never got it to work as well.

[bbolt]

According to Flare support, we can't use the ePub format because
· Our help project uses folders
· We use dropdowns
· We have tables within the dropdowns

Flare support submitted bug report 50013 to address this.
I consider the above standard requirements-we've used this functionality with Webhelp & PDF for several releases. IMO, Flare should not have released the ePub format without support for this functionality. I hope they are expediting a fix.

[wbrisett]

According to Flare support, we can't use the ePub format because
· Our help project uses folders
· We use dropdowns
· We have tables within the dropdowns

Are you sure ePub supports drop downs and tables within drop downs? (I don't think it does). The entire ePub format is a bit weak at this point. We've looked at it, and with it's lack of really good table support, it's not going to work with our documents.

Wayne