How do I make something look different in XML Editor?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Hello all.

I've wasted ages hunting for a recent (last couple of months) post that described an attribute you can add to a style class in a stylesheet that makes a thing (like a variable, x-ref or something else, I can't remember) to make it appear noticeable in the XML Editor, but it doesn't look any different in the output. There was a link to a topic in the Flare help, where it specifically said something like "This applies in the XML Editor only", but despite hunting in the help too, I can't find it.

Can any of you lovely people point me in the right direction? I've wasted far too many hours looking for it!

What I'm trying to do is make my x-refs appear a bit more noticeable in my XML Editor than they currently are (it'd be nice to have a background colour on them so I can spot them) as I swap between print an online layouts, so when viewing a x-ref that was inserted in online layout view, it's formatted with just the text, and I don't want to have to click "Update cross-references" on every topic I edit.

Thanks, and happy Friday to all.

[NorthEast]

You use square brackets to style something with an attribute; e.g. style anything that has a href: [href] { background-color: yellow; }

However, I'm not sure how you'd do that with xrefs, since they don't really have any attributes that are in the editor but not the output (they just have [href]).

One way could be to set a background colour for xrefs, but put that in a separate stylesheet that's linked to a target that you use for testing only.

Also, changing a xref style wont make any difference with the stored xref text in the topic. Nothing will automatically update the xref text, and save you clicking "Update cross-references".