MadCap Software Forums

Hundreds of files - how is this different from WebHelp?

Seems like a lot of people want a configurable HTML chm.

Hi Matt,
We're still not currently using DNH although as noted in the post, it's still a priority. It does (unfortunately) seem a slightly half-arsed approach at the moment.

Can I ask what else you are using? And developing in Flare I presume?

I'm working on a new ground-up project built using ...

Does anyone know how to get the New Topic dialog to default to my custom template folder? I will never need the Factory templates.

Had a recurrence of this problem.

No error messages.
No log file.
Claims to have compiled the chm, but can't open it.
Bad chm ~ 40GB; good chm ~ 21GB

Deleted old target file and made new one - compiled OK.

Odd.

Files used as the source for the application build are picked up from the Perforce server; they are therefore revision-dependent and store the revision history of each chm build and each application build. This includes the documentation files: readme, manuals, diagrams etc.

Why do you have to shut down Flare before checking into Perforce?

Thanks, Ramon.

Yes, it was rendered read-only by source control.

I was a bit too quick to the forum that time.

Any ideas?

I build a HTML target (no errors)
I view the target
I close the chm window
I click Close to exit the Flare build report window
I click view primary (or r-click > View from the Targets folder)
I get this message:

chm_Already_Open_Error.png

As far as I can see the only process that ...

Three of us are working on the same Flare project. I am the only one who can build a chm - the other two generate a bloated chm that cannot be opened (broken = 34MB, good =24 MB).

The project is shared via source control (Perforce) so should be identical on all machines.

Can anyone shed light on ...

I've had the error on a number of occasions, but, as Lisa says, always related to the .fltoc file.

The TOC seems to get changed to UTF-16 somewhere along the line. If changed to UTF-8 in a text editor it behaves itself. Also, if saved in source control with filetype binary it behaves itself.

Just a suggestion - could the madcap software logo at the top of the forums page be linked to http://www.madcapsoftware.com instead of the to forum home page?

I don't recall that inter-topic hyperlinks were any easier in RH - pretty much the same.

Indexing was certainly easier in RH - all index entries for a topic listed in a separate dialog.

In RH you can easily set the size of graphics. Supposed to be possible in Flare, but I haven't made it work, so ...

Anyone know anything about Five Steps to MadCap Flare?

Dave Lee wrote:

KevinDAmery wrote:What's "C21"?

21st century, at a guess.

Good guess.

Reading too much David Foster Wallace - just so long at it doesn't insinuate into my technical writing...

Thanks Ramon.

Luckily my parade passed by a while ago and it's bright and sunny here.

Just thought I'd mention it - our testers found the error on a VM running XP and IE6. There may be some customers in far-flung corners still using IE6. I'll add a "not supported by" statement in the Readme.

Has anyone noticed an error with the Next and Previous buttons on the toolbar proxy when using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6?
Doesn't appear with subsequent versions of IE.

Bug report going in.

Thanks for that - surprising what you find when trawling (trolling?) for something else.

I've been using <br> or breaking and continuing the list - these nested tags are MUCH better.

I understand (can't remember where I got it from - probably a writeup of one of those UA conferences, but it may have been from the Microsoft website) that Help 3.0 is the version incorporated into Visual Studio 10 (as VS10 UA, not as a development platform) and 3.1 (though it may a be a higher ...

Nope, sorry - this is the way it works.

You have to edit out the current page each time.

(Which is one reason implementing Concepts is on my list-of-things-to-do)

Has anyone seen Microsoft Help 3.0, loaded as UA on Visual Studio 10?

This, as I read it, is a prototype for a new ground-up help platform from Microsoft. Anyone in the know?

Is Flare planning to include it as another target type?

Update -

Problem still there - when TOC is merged , it gets corrupted and cannot be shared. Even when set to binary, sets to UTF-16 and adds junk characters.

In this case, it also overwrote a large portion of the file with junk, so that the original content is unrecoverable.
TOCJunk_text.png ...

Irrits relieved. Many thanks

How often does a person need to diff and merge a TOC?

When more than one writer is editing the TOC. We now have three writers working on the same project simultaneously, all of whom could have reason to modify the TOC.

Yes the binary option would work - however it's not helpful when it comes ...

I put in an RFE for an F4-type function. There seems to be a lot of support for this. Let's hope it's reasonably easy to implement.

Do a "diff" on the Flare source files? Easy if you're using source control.