removing links from imported Flare files

[livetoski]

I had the bright idea of running two projects in parallel. I thought I would use the import feature kind of like a branch and created a duplicate project, but without all the glunk from the past, just a selective import for the new project. Also, going through explorer meant I would have to remove all the repository information from each folder, no big deal but I was hoping for something better. I thought I would continue to reimport the little changes that were going on in the former head project, which would apply to the future release as well.

I now think this was a dumb idea. I am very suspicious of the import feature now, based on a few very strange happenings (such as no changes being made in the project to which I am importing, but getting a notice that the files had changed) and the reimport doesn't work right. Anyway, I won't create a new project like this again. As I read between the lines of the help, I see that creating a new project from a Flare project through import isn't exactly mentioned, so this is really my fault.

Can someone tell me if it is possible to remove the links from the files without having to get that dialog each time a file is saved?

[techwriter31]

You should be able to delete your import file to remove the links and to prevent the dialogs from popping up.

I'm curious though, because I use global project linking for several of my projects, but haven't run into these types of problems.

[livetoski]

Thanks so much, that's all I needed to do. I just deleted all my import files through Windows Explorer et voila! no more links. So I will use this to create new projects. It's more convenient than copying and pasting.

Yes, I am having odd problems. I don't find reimport reliable, but I am not using it for just a few files, so perhaps that's an issue, I have not used global project linking, which would be a good idea if I could bring myself to trust it and to figure out how to do it right. We do share the css, tablestyles, glossary, page layouts, masters pages, variables, skins, and conditional text over several projects, so it seems logical that I should do this. I am still very confused about why files that I haven't touched are showing up as newer than source. I just ignore the message and update the files as required.

Thanks again, it wasn't the clearest message I could have written. What is your process for handling the global project linking, if you have the time to tell me? Linda

[techwriter31]

I currently use GPL for our page layouts, global images, all stylesheets, global snippets, webhelp skins, conditional tags, etc. Here's a post that might help:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... &sk=t&sd=a
(I followed Nita Beck's advice for setting up the directory structure, and it has helped keeped the "global" content separate from the "local" content.)

So, you're saying that when reimporting in the child project, the dialog is indicating that files in the global project have changed, even though you haven't modified the files in the global project? I don't think I've had that happen yet (that I'm aware of at least). How often do you reimport?

If you want to post a screenshot of your import file settings, I can take a look and try to help?

[livetoski]

Thanks very much for this. I will try and post a screen shot of what I am seeing and what my settings are in the next week. You have solved a critical problem for me, as I was really annoyed by the links. Maybe it will be obvious to me in the documentation now, but I sure didn't get it before that I could remove the linkages by deleting the import files. And the help for Flare doesn't implicitly mention using import to create a new file from Flare project to Flare project, so I thought I had really goofed.

I had been reimporting every couple of days or so, and only working in one project and importing to the other. This was to avoid copying and pasting from one project to the next. The dying days of the release, lots of stuff to fix and in a slower moment ealier on I created the new projects for the next iterations of products in Flare. I don't mind that reimport doesn't work as it should, as long as I know it. As I don't want the links, I just set up the imports fresh each time now.