Flare 9 issues

[navoff]

Anyone else besides me annoyed that they removed the Copy to Project step when adding a new topic? In previous versions of Flare after filling in the information in the Add New Topic wizard you'd get a popup that reviewed what was being copied and there was a checkbox that gave you the option to automatically have the new file added to source control at the same time. That confirmation window no longer appears so when you click the Add button, you go straight to adding the file and there's no option to automatically add it to source control.

As a result of this new "feature" I'm getting a lot more issues of Flare and SourceSafe having issues such as Flare thinking a file isn't added to SourceSafe but SourceSafe showing the file is there. Then when you go to check in the file, you get an error message in Flare. Or having Flare think there are discrepancies between the version of a file in SourceSafe and the local copy. I regularly have to "resolve" conflicts (usually selecting to discard external changes). I had to do that a couple of times, total, with all the other versions of Flare but it happens on a weekly, if not daily, basis now.

[navoff]

Actually, I've noticed that, in general, Flare doesn't refresh well anymore, whether it's correctly flagging files that are added/checked in or just updating files using variables. I just had an incident where I was modifying a document that hadn't been updated since last year. We have a "global" project that houses stuff like stylesheets, legal pages, variables, etc. I re-imported the files from the global project but when I looked at the legal page, the copyright info wasn't correct. I verified the that the variable was set correctly in the imported variable file and that the snippet it was being used in was set to point to the right variable. Even building the document didn't correct the problem. I had to exit Flare and restart it in order for the program to "see" that the variable had been updated.

[kevinmcl]

<rant>

I'm running Flare 9.1.2 on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.

I don't use the Review tab. Neither does the other writer. He's ticked about this, too.
Some time around 9.1, "Track Changes" started asserting itself, and putting a check beside "Show Changes".

I have lost literally days because of this.
Not once have I EVER put a checkmark IN the "Show Changes" box.
But it gets in my way constantly.

I make changes to a dozen pages, clicking "Save All" after, and closing topics. Then I publish so that my actual reviewers (who just want to see my output in a browser, and who don't have anything to do with the Flare Review feature) can view the revised output.
So, before sending the e-mail with the link to my published output, I fire up my browser to verify... and there, big as life, are my changes...... N O T !!

Cursing, I open the topic that I'm SURE I changed, and 9 times out of 10, lately, I'm looking at the damned "Show Changes" version and the damned box has checked itself. SOMEtimes, the "Track Changes" icon will have selected itself. OTHER times, the "Track Changes" icon will be UNselected, but the topic will still open with all the changes flagged from the previous session (where track changes..... was..... not..... on!!).

So, I Accept Change > Accept all. Then I uncheck the miserable self-checking "Show Changes", and I perform yet another "Save all". Then I try to remember all the other topics that I might have modified in any way at all in that previous session, and re-open them and Accept Changes in them, and turn off Track Changes in them, and uncheck Show Changes in them, and "Save all" them, and re-build and re-publish AGAIN (another 22 minutes out of my life, on top of the previous build-publish 22 minutes that were utterly wasted....).

So, now it seems that I have to keep notes of every topic, every Snippet (snippets to not propagate until "Accept Change > Change all" has been committed on Snippets that DID NOT HAVE TRACK CHANGES TURNED ON DAMMIT!!), so I can close out Flare, open it, revisit every one of those pages and Snippets to find that Track Changes was invisibly on, and has now become visible, so I can go through the ritual... and THEN I can build and publish.

Now, I'm going to have to revisit every one of a hundred and some snippets, and every one of a couple of thousand topics, to verify that they don't have the uninvited "Track Changes" and "Show Changes" turned on.

Obviously, after I caught on what was happening, I went to the end of the Review ribbon and opened "Review Options", in order to turn off the damned feature that I'm not using, never used, and don't want to use.... and it opens the general Options dialog. Well there's a "Review" tab near the bottom of the Options, so I open that... to find that there's no "Off". Several things I can change about it when it's on, but no way to shut it off.

Yes, I know I'll eventually find out how to kill the damned feature by googling, but who thought that it was a good idea to turn it on? And who thought it was a good idea to not have an OFF switch in the Review Options > Options > Review dialog?
Who thought it was a good idea to have the Flare Help talk all about using the feature, enabling it, sending, receiving, accepting, rejecting.... but not a word about DISABLING it. Nothing about preventing "Track Changes" from silently, invisibly switching on for new topics and for old topics that I open to make changes?

Yes, I'm sure it's right in front of me, and I've missed it over and over, probably because my vision has been flooded with red... because it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

</rant>

[Psider]

I don't think this really helps you, but I think Accept All Changes only accepts the changes in the selected topic, not all changes in the project. I could be wrong on that, as I don't actually use Track Changes. Maybe this is why not all the changes are gone when you open other topics.

Ah, found the help topic "About Track Changes" which confirms the above.

Also it notes you can use the built in Analyzer tool to get a list of files that contain changes and annotations - that might help you at least scrub them all out of your project. I think that means the Reports in Project Organiser.

Hope that helps in a small way,
Amber

[Msquared]

Another person has been reporting identical issues here. http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=17755 after testing out Contributor.

I'm going to add a link to this this thread there too. Together we may crack it.