MadCap Software Forums

Slick! Thank you

I hope there is a way to turn that off, but I haven't found it yet. I'm new at .Net help, though

For this very reason, I typically use Google's advanced search to search the forum.

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

In the "Search within a site or domain" field, type 'forums.madcapsoftware.com' to search only this site.

I would love to be able to use the built-in forum search, but ...

Try using CTRL+TAB to move to new areas of the window - that should let you switch tabs, get to the OK button, and so on.

For further automating stuff, you could try a macro app. Most of the macro programs are a little fiddly, but once set up they can really save you from repetitive motions. I use ...

Here's a screenshot:
nextprevious.jpg

So, group 1 are the Previous/Next combo. These go up and down through your TOC. That's useful for short projects like tutorials or something where your users want to be able to step through a project.

Group 2 are the Back/Forward combo. These work like your ...

This took me a bit of time to figure out (I is not a programmer), and I didn't find anything in the forums about it, so I thought I'd share it here.

I have an HTML Help project that uses the WebHelp toolbar to add expand all/collapse all capability and a feedback link. However, I wanted to hide ...

You can also use Google's advanced search to search only in the site: forums.madcapsoftware.com. You can get to it here: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

That'll let you get around the forum's other search limitations, like refusing to search for terms that are "too common".

Wow! Just... wow. Thanks for writing this up.

Looks like quite a bit of work to set it up. You gotta really want this to use it very often.

But of course I'm going to play with it anyway

You can change the name of the folder (I did - everything works fine) but it looks like it would be real work to keep some or all resources outside of the project. If I try to use a stylesheet (for example) that exists outside of the project, Flare just copies it into the project.

If you want to ...

Okay, here's what I have for scripts right now. It's not extensive, but it took care of my immediate need.

This script launches Flare and then stays open to capture hotkeys. I've set it to hide the tray icon, and if I run it again it will only keep one copy of the script running without asking ...

There are forums on their site that have tons of example scripts - I found a bunch of stuff there, not for Flare, but for some of my other applications. But the scripts are good examples of what is possible.

There's also a recording tool that installed with the application. It just grabs keyboard ...

Far and away, the three things I use hotkeys for the most are inserting cross-references, inserting snippets, and creating togglers. All three of those are buried in menus, but I need them frequently.

I also have shortcuts set up for opening the Index Entry window, and one for inserting an index ...

In the style sheet, there should be a class called "toggler" which controls all the styles for the toggler link, including color, size, weight, and the location of the drop-down arrow (mc-image-position). Make sure you're in the Advanced view to see all the available style options.

I've started using a little app called AutoHotkey to create custom shortcuts for things that I do repetitively, like inserting snippets, cross-references, togglers, etc. Basically, it's a macro that watches for particular keystrokes and then executes.

I got it here: http://www.autohotkey.com/

While you're renaming files, you might want to keep track of which old names correspond to which new names - maybe a quick spreadsheet or something. Then if links break - aren't updated correctly for whatever reason - you can use find-and-replace to fix them without having to figure out from context ...

Yep, you're right. In that situation, it needs to just work...

I hate to suggest it, but the only other thing that's coming to me is to create a snippet with the Note: formatted the way you want. Insert it every time you add a note. Then at least if you needed to change the format, font weight ...

I know it's an extra step, and a pain, but the Replace feature in Word should be able to replace the {b} tags with formatting.

Find "{b}Note:{/b}"

Replace with "Note:" , and in the Replace options, use Format > Style or Format > Font to bold the text.

Just throwing that out there. It may or may ...

If you want to get rid of all <blockquote> and replace them with <p>, you can use the Find and Replace feature (CTRL+F). Make sure you select the check box for "Find in Source Code". Also make sure you replace the closing tags </blockquote> with </p>.

If you don't like the Flare find-and-replace ...

I do dock the Style window on the right side of the screen, and it's the only thing over there, so I have the maximum possible vertical space I just have a lot of styles...

Thanks for the tips!

That works! Thank you, Lisa!

Thanks. I know what they're for, they're just irritating, time-consuming, and carpal-tunnel-inducing. I was hoping that I was just missing a button somewhere to turn them off.

I like that I can hide them in the stylesheet (gets them out of my way there), but I absolutely HATE having to scroll past ...

I have a project with a serious excess of "inherited" styles that I cannot delete. I never, ever use the HTML tags like cite, abbr, big, code, em, var, samp, ins, small, del, etc, etc, etc, but I cannot figure out how to remove them from my style list.

I looked at my stylesheet with a text editor ...

I've been looking on and off for a couple of days, now, but I'm not seeing any way to script in links or "activate" the TOC in some way. I'll keep digging, though, and if I come up with anything I'll post it.

Thanks.

I am not averse to using the WebHelp toolbar (I've looked into using it on several occasions), but I've not found a way to add the Next/Previous buttons to it. The list of Available toolbar buttons (on the WebHelp Toolbar tab in the Skin Editor) does not include Next or Previous. Is there a script ...

We are converting a tutorial over from RoboHelp, and the Previous/Next buttons are giving us a bit of trouble.

The idea is that we launch a window with minimal buttons: Show/Hide, Next, Previous, Print. The user can then use the Next and Previous buttons to page through the tutorial.

However ...