Import Formats?

[wvnomad]

Hey all,

Here's my dilemma. Our team has an application built with Oracle's Application Express. This program has a built-in CSH which uses a built-in text editor to make things "easy" (bet they didn't get a documentation person to buy-off on that!) Anyway, this text editor stinks and it's not easy to find the topic in need of updating. So I thought Flare could help me out since it does CSH.

Our DBA tells me that the code can be exported from the database, thereby saving me time from re-typing everything because we're on a deadline (like always).
However, she needs to know what format she can put it in so that I can import it. Does Flare import .txt files, etc?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[KevinDAmery]

You could import a TXT file, although you would then have to structure and format it. You would also need to have separate TXT files for each topic (Flare won't automatically break the text into new topics with TXT, because it has no way to identify where the breaks should go). This wouldn't be an issue if the DB gave you each topic as its own TXT file, but it would be a lot of work if it's all one big text stream.

If it is a long text stream, you could possibly save a little time if they can export the topics out into Word or RTF format with headings--then at least you could tell Flare to create a new topic at each heading.

Another thing to consider is what format you need the output in. Flare can create context sensitive help in Webhelp, HTML Help (aka CHM) and DotNetHelp formats. I'm not sure if the Oracle application can support those, or if it only supports Oracle Help (which was a flavour of Java Help as I recall). You might want to find out what output formats your app can link to before taking the plunge.

[wvnomad]

Thanks for the info. I'll let her know and we'll go from there.