Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

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kwag_myers
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Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

I have a Project Template that I've been using to build Help projects for a suite of applications. Now they want me to build a master catalog of these projects, along with some other documentation, for training and reference. The issue is that each project has a home.htm, gettingStarted.htm, releaseNotes.htm, etc. My only thought is to add a project-specific prefix to the file names to avoid having duplicate file names. Actually, I'm not sure Flare will allow me to import duplicate files. Does anyone have a better idea?
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paintedturtle
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by paintedturtle »

kwag_myers wrote:I have a Project Template that I've been using to build Help projects for a suite of applications. Now they want me to build a master catalog of these projects, along with some other documentation, for training and reference. The issue is that each project has a home.htm, gettingStarted.htm, releaseNotes.htm, etc. My only thought is to add a project-specific prefix to the file names to avoid having duplicate file names. Actually, I'm not sure Flare will allow me to import duplicate files. Does anyone have a better idea?
You should be able to create a separate folder for each of the various projects within the new project. Then Flare will allow you to have duplicate file names because they're under separate folders.
Technical Writer using and experimenting with Flare version 12.0.5991.
kwag_myers
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

Thanks for the suggestion. When I add a folder to the Content folder, Flare wants to import the files to the Content folder even though I have the new folder selected. I tried exporting the sub project into the main, but the topic files do not appear to be linked to the original project.
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paintedturtle
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by paintedturtle »

kwag_myers wrote:Thanks for the suggestion. When I add a folder to the Content folder, Flare wants to import the files to the Content folder even though I have the new folder selected. I tried exporting the sub project into the main, but the topic files do not appear to be linked to the original project.
Hmm, interesting.

More probably unhelpful thoughts: Have you tried adding the topic files outside of Flare in Windows Explorer?

When I import in Flare, my Word Import file automatically imports the files to a Word Import Folder and then I reorganize (which, yes, can cause broken links sometimes but it works for my project so far). I couldn't figure out how its set to do that to help you.
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kwag_myers
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

I tried moving everything into folders so there were no topic files at the Content folder level, then importing a project. But when I moved the imported files to a folder, the link to the source project was broken. When I built the output, Flare re-imported the files to the Content folder. It appears there is no way to link a file to a source project if it resides in a subfolder of Content.
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ChoccieMuffin
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're after, but here's what we do, for what it's worth.

We have a couple of massive projects that import from other "modular" projects and then build. In each of the little projects, the structure is Content\Project1\*.htm and Content\Project1_images\*.png, and so on for other projects. The TOCs in these little projects all point to the HTM files in the Content\Project1 folders.

When I've run all my imports, the Content folder of my big project looks like this:
\Content
___\Project1\*.htm
___\Project1_images\*.png
___\Project2\*.htm
___\Project2_images\*.png
___\Project3\*.htm
___\Project3_images\*.png

and so on.

And my TOC for the big project includes "nested" tocs, using the imported TOCs from the little projects (with the option to merge the node, somewhere on Advanced properties - don't have Flare open at the moment.)

And apart from stupidities with conditions (my stupidities, not Flare's), it really works well.

Hope that helps.
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kwag_myers
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

That's what I'm after, thanks! I put in a feature request for selecting a target folder when importing. But your suggestion is a nice workaround (better than renaming files).
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ChoccieMuffin
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Glad I could help, kwag. :)
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kwag_myers
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

Me too. :D

Here's another one for you: My MasterPage has a Menu Proxy, and I made sure all the projects have the same MasterPage and Skin for the menu. When I build an output for a single project, all is well. However, when I build the collective project, the menu does not display. When I look at the code of the output, there is nothing there to represent the menu.

Edit: I think it has something to do with the TOC, since the Menu Proxy is linked to the Master TOC. How do you manage these?
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NorthEast
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by NorthEast »

kwag_myers wrote:Here's another one for you: My MasterPage has a Menu Proxy, and I made sure all the projects have the same MasterPage and Skin for the menu. When I build an output for a single project, all is well. However, when I build the collective project, the menu does not display. When I look at the code of the output, there is nothing there to represent the menu.
Does your "collective project" use project merging?
If it does, then the top navigation menu and menu proxy will not work.
Note: For HTML5 Tripane output, the Menu proxy and skin component will not work for merged projects or linking to external Help systems. Merging projects is not supported in Top Navigation output at all.
http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare12/ ... %20merging
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

Thanks, Dave. Unless I misunderstand the concept, I am not merging projects. Also, I'm using a Top Nav skin. The menu displays correctly on the collective project. The problem only exists with the modular projects within the collective project.

When importing image and media files, those files are imported to a common folder. If I include TOC files in the import, will that overwrite my collective project TOC, since they all have the same name?
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NorthEast
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by NorthEast »

kwag_myers wrote:Thanks, Dave. Unless I misunderstand the concept, I am not merging projects. Also, I'm using a Top Nav skin. The menu displays correctly on the collective project. The problem only exists with the modular projects within the collective project.

When importing image and media files, those files are imported to a common folder. If I include TOC files in the import, will that overwrite my collective project TOC, since they all have the same name?
Sorry, I see you're using a project import.

If a TOC file in your modular project has the same name filename as your collective project, then yes it'll overwrite the file if you import it.
So you need to either change the TOC filenames in the modular projects, or put them in a sub-folder in Project\TOCs.

Also, if your main TOC file (in the collective project) has links to TOC files imported from the modular projects, then you need to make sure the linked TOCs are set to use Advanced > When merging, replace node with merged TOC.


To avoid conflicts when you import, I'd suggest that you first work out what the file/folder structure needs to look like in your collective project (i.e. what it needs to look like after everything has been imported).
Then you adjust the file/folder structure in your modular projects to match this structure, so that they all fit in together when they're imported.
kwag_myers
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

Unfortunately, the only way I can get the menu to work the way I want is to manually add the topics of the modular projects to the collective TOC. Maybe when I am not under a deadline I can experiment with merging. I still have five more modular projects to add, they just aren't ready yet.
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NorthEast
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by NorthEast »

kwag_myers wrote:Unfortunately, the only way I can get the menu to work the way I want is to manually add the topics of the modular projects to the collective TOC. Maybe when I am not under a deadline I can experiment with merging. I still have five more modular projects to add, they just aren't ready yet.
Although that option refers to "merging", it's nothing to do with project merging (plus you can't use project merging with top nav anyway).

When you set up the collective TOC, you're presumably linking to the TOC files from your modular projects.

For each linked TOC file in the collective TOC, set the option When merging, replace node....
Otherwise, Flare will create an additional book/folder in the TOC structure, and because this is not linked to a topic, it will break the breadcrumbs, menu proxy, etc.
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

Ok, I got it. Part of the issue I was having, and still haven't resolved completely, is the Menu Proxy was set to Context Sensitive. Once I cleared the check box the menu displayed properly. However, the specifications call for a collapsible menu, i.e., Context Sensitive. Any recommendations for making that happen?

In Summary, here's what I've done:

1. Added a project named sub-folder to each modular project's Contents folder (per ChoccieMuffin's recommendation).
2. Named the Master TOC of each modular project to the project.
3. Imported each modular project, including Topic and TOC files, with Auto-reimport before "Generate Output" selected.
4. In the Properities of a collective project TOC topic, linked a corresponding modular TOC (see Linking TOC Entries).
5. Cleared the Context sensitive setting of the Menu Proxy.
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by NorthEast »

kwag_myers wrote:Ok, I got it. Part of the issue I was having, and still haven't resolved completely, is the Menu Proxy was set to Context Sensitive. Once I cleared the check box the menu displayed properly. However, the specifications call for a collapsible menu, i.e., Context Sensitive. Any recommendations for making that happen?
The Flare menu proxy is static, it doesn't provide a collapsible menu for the top nav skin.
You could use the tripane skin though.

I worked on a way to style the menu proxy as a collapsible accordion menu, which doesn't use Flare's skins and uses the Foundation framework.
Craig/StrayGoat has written a blog about how this works here: http://straygoat-technicalauthor.co.uk/ ... -part-one/
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Re: Importing Projects Results In Duplicate File Names

Post by kwag_myers »

Thanks again, Dave. Forgive my ignorance, but I wonder why we can't have a TOC proxy that functions like the tri-pane skins?

Edit: One thing I needed to add to the CSS is .menu so I could set the background. I was able to set the hover and active backgrounds, but could not find this setting. Otherwise, works great.
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