Importing GPL topics to a different folder

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JRtechw
Propeller Head
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:08 pm

Importing GPL topics to a different folder

Post by JRtechw »

Hi Flarefolk,

1. Import to a different folder

After several years of not having to link projects, I now have a need to import topics from a 'master' project to a sub-project. Our primary online help is being shifted behind an IPwall, but there remains a need for Sales and Support to be able to send out links to articles without requiring credentials to access.

I've set up a 'public' project, and want to import a half-dozen or so articles from the master project for redundancy. However, the public project has a much shallower and flatter folder structure by design, as the URLs need to be as short and punchy as possible. URL scrunchers are not an option.

This thread seems to confirm that you must retain the folder structure of an imported topic:

viewtopic.php?f=75&t=16370&p=87461

Which seems to me to be an unnecessary restriction on importing linked topics. Why shouldn't you be able to remap a linked topic, given the ease with which Flare adjusts links and dependencies when moving topics in the Content Explorer?

I'll submit a feature request, but I was wondering if anyone had managed to get around this? It wouldn't take much to whip up a pre-build script that moved a bunch of files and adjusted links, but I thought I'd ask first. I did open the *flimpfl file in the text editor to see if there was anything I could play with, but it doesn't look like it. I'm also not sure if the pre-build script would fire before or after the auto-reimport, but I would be ok with manually reimporting before building.

2. Changing topic properties such as a master page

I suspect the answer is 'no', but are you able to change the master page for a topic after import? My public project has different branding by necessity, and imported topics will need to be assigned to a different master page. I *could* leave this selection blank in both projects and rely on the Target default master page if absolutely necessary, but would rather assign at the topic level. I could fudge it with topic snippets, but again, I look for the simplest option first.

Do let me know if I'm pounding a square peg into a round hole on this one, and that GPL is designed for branding variation and global resources propagation rather than what I'm trying to do. But surely there is a massive use case out there for plain old topic sharing between projects that have different publishing requirements?

Thanks in advance.
NorthEast
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 6359
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:33 am

Re: Importing GPL topics to a different folder

Post by NorthEast »

1. You can't do this in Flare. And if you move topics outside of Flare, then any links to those topics will be broken.

2. If you only use one master page in your target, then set the master page at the target level. It'd be pointless setting it at the topic level, and also make your project less versatile.

But if you need to set different master pages for topics, and the master page path might change, then you can set the master page using a topic style class (instead of setting the master page in topic properties).
For example:
1) Create a new html class in your stylesheet, add use mc-master-page to set the path to the master page; e.g.

Code: Select all

html.whatever
{
   mc-master-page: url('../MasterPages/Your_Master_Page.flmsp');
}
2) For each topic that will use this master page, apply the class html.whatever. (If you've previously set a master page in topic properties, make sure you remove this.)

This is described in old versions of the Flare help (like v11), but inexplicably MadCap seem to have removed this information from current versions:
https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare11 ... Topics.htm

The benefit of using this method is that to change the master page file (or its path), you can just edit one line of CSS, rather than having to edit every single topic.
JRtechw
Propeller Head
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:08 pm

Re: Importing GPL topics to a different folder

Post by JRtechw »

Thanks Dave, I'll look at that CSS solution to master pages. I do use a handful of different master pages in my projects for long instruction sets vs pure concept, etc.

I think I will try and use snippets to solve my problem. I don't care where imported resource files go.

Cheers.
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