How does the compiler "know" that merging is not supported?

[oelgoetz]

Hello all,

when I build a project with a TOC that contains project merging links, the compiler says: "Removing entry: The current target type does not support linking to a project:" (The Error ID is 10129).
I wonder how the compiler "knows" that the target does not support merging. At least I haven't found an attribute in the target file itself that could indicate it.

(My candidate was the Type="WebHelp2" attribute in the target file but this is the same in html5 'tripane' targets - which support project merging - as in html5 'top navigation' targets - which don't).

Can anybody tell me what it is?

[Nita Beck]

Flare supports merging of HTML5 tripane output, but not HTML5 Side Navigation or Top Navigation. This is mentioned, albeit in a rather buried way, in Flare’s documentation, as we can see here at the very bottom of the topic: http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare201 ... argets.htm

So, if your target is Side Nav or Top Nav, the merge isn’t supported.

I don’t know that there’s any attribute one can explicitly set or hack. My answer to the “how does the compiler ‘know’” is that that’s how MadCap programmed Flare.

[oelgoetz]

Thank you Nita for the quick reply

however, I was already aware that Side Nav/Top Nav do not support project merging and I had no illusions towards hacking it.
I'm writing a tool that parses my Flare projects to re-arrange them.
The tool must decide by the target type what to do. So I'm searching the property that carries this information in the xml.
If I don't know it I have to use the filename of the target or the skin file which is a rather unreliable indicator.

Any other suggestions out there?

[Herbert Poesch]

Maybe the decision is made internally by looking at the "Type" entry in the target file. There are different types:
- HTML5: Type="WebHelp2"
- WebHelpMobile: Type="WebHelpMobile"
- HTML Help (CHM): Type="HtmlHelp"
- PDF: Type="PDF"

In the skin file, you have the same type description in the "Skintype" entry:
- SkinType="WebHelp2"
- ...

[NorthEast]

Well, you'd need to parse both the target and the skin.
Check the target to find the skin it uses, and then check the skin to find whether it's Tripane or Top/Side Nav. I *think* Version in the XML indicates if it's Tripane (=2) or Top/Side Nav (=3).