linked images not refreshed

[AndreaCID]

Hi folks,
we have a strange issue: We have a lot of screenshots in our project that have been updated. But within Flare some of them still are displayed as old version.
In the file system I see the new version, but in the Flare Editor the old version is displayed. When I open the image within the Flare Editor ("Open Link" from the context menu) the new version is displayed, but the topic itself shows the old version, and the old version is inserted into the outputs. It seems that they will not be refreshed. But only several of them shows this effect, all the others - handled with the same procedure - are ok.

We are using Flare 2017 for HTML5 and PDF outputs. Windows 7 Enterprise machine.

We are working with former versions of Flare with the same update procedure for years and we never saw such an effect.

All hints are welcome.

Best
Andrea

[Nita Beck]

My first instinct is to suspect that there are Capture .props files associated with the images. You won’t see .props files directly within Flare; using Windows Explorer, look in the folder that contains the images. If there are indeed .props files, that’s likely to be the source of the issue.

A .props files contains not only any objects (such as rectangles, callouts, and arrows and lines) that one may put on an image—as well as any special effects such as scaling, a border, or a shadow on the whole image, it also contains the image itself. This is referred to as the “background image” in Capture-speak. Even if there are no objects, if a user ever opened an image in Capture, then a .props file was created.

To “refresh” the background image, you can try two methods. One is to recapture the images using Capture’s Recapture command (I think; I’m not at work today and am going on memory). But given that you’ve already got the images, you can instead use Capture’s Replace command. First, put copies of the images that need to be refreshed someplace outside the Flare project. Then, from within the Flare project (or at least from the Windows Explorer folder where the images are stored in the Flare project), open each one to edit with Capture. Use the Replace command to replace the background image with the corresponding COPY that you put elsewhere. Then save.

Of course, there is a third solution, too. If the images in question have no objects and absolutely no special effects of any sort, you may be able to get away with deleting the .props files.

I hope all this helps. And if there are no .props files, then I don’t know why the images aren’t “refreshing.”

[AndreaCID]

Dear Nita,

thank you for your quick and detailed answer.
We didn't use Capture, we're using another tool. But there are conditions defined for all screenshots, so we have .prop files.

But it looks like that you had the right instinct.

Usually our.prop files only contain the condition:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<fileProperties conditions="Default.MatrixONE,Default.Base" />

Some of them contain a lot more information, including a path:
<fileProperties>
<ImageOverlay ScreenRectangle="2375,242,674,254">
<OriginalImage FileName="" Folder="C:\dev\trunk\de\Content">SUkqANhWAQCANOBP8AQWDQeEQmFQuGQ2HQ+IRGJROKRWLReMRmNRuOR2PR+QSGRSOSSWTSeUSmVSuWS2XS+YTGZTOaTWbTecTmdTueT2fT+gUGhUOiUWjUekUmlUuhwJpwSmVGpVOqVWrVesVmtVuuV2vV+wWGxWOyWWzWe0Wm1Wu2W2i06oW65XO6XW7Xe8Xm9Xu+X2/X/AYHBYPCYXDYej3DEYvGY3HY/I...............

Where does this information come from? When and why it is generated? And how can we avoid this?

Greetings from germany
Andrea

[Nita Beck]

I have no idea what MadCap has programmed a .props file to contain beyond what I’ve already explained. (And forgive me that I didn’t think about conditions; yes, applying a condition to an image will spawn a .props file to contain the condition.)

Regarding how to avoid having Capture include the second set of stuff such you identified, you can’t. That’s just how .props files work. I believe that’s the “background image” information.

To solve your immediate problem, you’ll need to use the “Replace” technique that I described earlier.