what causes the html code to clump together in Text Editor

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ktbCA57
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what causes the html code to clump together in Text Editor

Post by ktbCA57 »

I'm having issues getting information to group into a div. So i was looking at the code in the text editor. I found that instead of the usual delineation of lines , all the code is clumped together into one VEERRY long line of code.

i went thru and tried breaking it up into individual lines, saved, then went to the xml editor, then back to text editor and all the spaces i added were gone and my code was all back on a single line again.

What causes this?

one long line of code like this makes it very difficult to make changes within the code itself (which i apparently need to do to create a div in this one situation).
Chicago_HPT
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by Chicago_HPT »

Hmm. I haven't seen that behavior.
  1. What version of Flare are you using?
  2. What steps do you perform that result in that outcome? (so we can try to replicate it)
Can you post an example of the resulting HTML?

Cheers,
-jeff
ktbCA57
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by ktbCA57 »

Hi...

Thanks for responding.. I ended up having to contact Tech Support... in one instance there was a &#160 issue... but i've had it happen since and that has not been the cause. I have a continuing ticket as they are starting to pop up.

This hasn't been an issue until our UI person started reworking some of the html code via the text editor.

Thanks again,

kb
Chicago_HPT
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by Chicago_HPT »

All righty, then. Good luck!
MarkMetcalfe
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by MarkMetcalfe »

I have a similar question. It doesn't affect the output but makes it harder to parse, especially when debugging. If I have an error in one of these lines, I'll add line breaks to narrow down where the error is. See the attached images (right side cropped out):

Line 78 runs on and on in a mash of HTML. The second image shows where I added line breaks, creating lines 78 through 95. It is more of a nuisance (since it is "correct"), but I am curious as to what causes it.
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Mark Metcalfe
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ktbCA57
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by ktbCA57 »

MarkMetcalfe wrote:Line 78 runs on and on in a mash of HTML. The second image shows where I added line breaks, creating lines 78 through 95. It is more of a nuisance (since it is "correct"), but I am curious as to what causes it.
I can't see all of the code from 78 and 79 that you posted... the first thing that caused my issue was a random <&#160> somewhere in the section... if you can post the whole thing, I can look at that..

otherwise, i had an issue in a table - without that being the reason... so I contacted tech support again.. and here was the next response:

"In the cases that you point out it looks like Flare treats all of the source code as inline when there is content directly within the td tags as opposed to when the content of the td tags is inside of paragraph tags. So the workaround would be to place that content inside of p tags. Hopefully that makes sense. "

However, this did not seem to be the case all the way thru as he was saying - I had other areas where this did not seem to be an issue... but his response was to tell me I need to add <p> tags... even tho I have loads of rows and columns in a table that don't have <p> tags... since i have row and column styles set up with defaults, i don't have to apply paragraph styles each time... I also had divs and images in the code that was clumping in the second case... so here was the final response from tech support:

"Every line that you cite(listed below) contains content directly within the td, table cell. This is why it's formatted in the way that it is, this is is the designed behavior...

...but the only workaround would be to place the content within a child element of the td such as a p tag. "

so basically i'm just living with it. :( :roll: :|

I'm not sure i
MarkMetcalfe
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by MarkMetcalfe »

I'll keep an eye out for the   characters. They are necessary in many cases, especially if I have two variables next to each other like so: <variable1> <variable2>. For some reason, Flare mashes those together too, like so: <variable1><variable2> so I have to put the forced space in like so: <variable1> <variable2>.

So?

I live with it, too.
Mark Metcalfe
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ktbCA57
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by ktbCA57 »

MarkMetcalfe wrote:I live with it, too.
it could be worse.. we could be stuck with one of the Adobe products like RoboHelp... the old help that was here when i started was in doc-to-help...

so i guess it's about trade-offs... :|
MarkMetcalfe
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by MarkMetcalfe »

It's a inconvenience only, and wondered why it happened.
I am a huge Flare fan, and I've been in tech writing for 34 years and have used a lot of tools. Flare is the best, hands down, because it can be simple and complex - easy to learn, and feature rich to master.
Mark Metcalfe
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mark.metcalfe@optimizely.com
ktbCA57
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Re: what causes the html code to clump together in Text Edit

Post by ktbCA57 »

MarkMetcalfe wrote: easy to learn, and feature rich to master.
I have a similar history, and agree that i'm a Flare fan.. but can't agree that it was easy to learn.. i had quite a steep learning curve and continue to be learning after almost 10 years... but i'm not very tech-savvy... so that's probably why.

:lol:
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