Flare 4 - Am I the only one disappointed

[dsimov]

There are three features that I find useful in the new release:
1. Global project linking
2. Collaboration
3. Reporting

I checked them. They all work but are too complicated. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how they work.
1. Global linking is nothing but an import. If I change the source file, to which I am supposedly linking all my projects, I have to re-import it in all projects (unless I select an auto-reimport before "Generate Output" checkbox in the import file that I am creating in order to 'link' the files).
2. Collaboration is a series of steps of sending and receiving email messages. I do not what to send files, I want to point people to the files on the server. I know there are cases when sending is necessary, so sending by email should be an option. Besides collaboration is so complicated that I would not even dare ask someone at my company use it.
3. Reporting is yet another good idea with a semi-implementation. Before you can use a report, you have to create it; that is, you have to add some pre-set reports in a report file. If you need the same reports for another project, then you import them or create them anew. If I import, am not sure they will be updated when I make changes to the masters, as reports do not get generated. Or maybe Flare just imports everything before generating the output.

When I played with the new version I found two nice things that come handy:
1. dropping snippets in the content,
2. choosing styles from a floating selector.
These two show me that MadCap can simplify things but are not worth the $500 upgrade cost.

Does anyone share my opinion, or am I crazy or just plain stupid?

[NorthEast]

1. Global linking is nothing but an import. If I change the source file, to which I am supposedly linking all my projects, I have to re-import it in all projects (unless I select an auto-reimport before "Generate Output" checkbox in the import file that I am creating in order to 'link' the files).

I'm not sure what your issue is here - to me, the linking works fine, and it does what it says it'll do. You can choose exactly which files in the other project(s) that you want to include, and Flare it will do all the re-importing automatically when you make your build. If this isn't what you expected, what did you expect or want it to do?

3. Reporting is yet another good idea with a semi-implementation. Before you can use a report, you have to create it; that is, you have to add some pre-set reports in a report file. If you need the same reports for another project, then you import them or create them anew. If I import, am not sure they will be updated when I make changes to the masters, as reports do not get generated. Or maybe Flare just imports everything before generating the output.

Reports aren't any different to any other common files in your projects that you may need to reuse, such as stylesheets or skins, and you can reuse them in the same way.

One way is to add the report files (the flrep files in Project/Reports) to your template. For example, to add a report to a project template, you'd include it in My templates\Projects\YourProject.flprj\Project\Reports; or to make the report available when you add a new report, include it in My templates\Reports.

Alternatively, if you change your reports frequently, you could use project linking to a master project that contains the latest reports.