Glossary Tab in HTML (CHM) Help

[Cal Wilson]

Flare 9.1.2

The output type for a project is HTML Help.

Can you help me make the glossary easier for the reader to use?

I have tried all the options I can find in the skin and target editors with no luck. I hope I have missed something that you can help me find.

I would like to make the following changes.

Add a Glossary tab as opposed to having a glossary book at the bottom of the TOC. If the glossary book extends beyond the boundary of the window, the book won’t be discovered. The Glossary tab is much easier to see. It would also be a similar appearance as that used in the HTML5 skin I have.

I would like the glossary terms to appear in the navigation bar as opposed to appearing in the main window. As it is, you have to click the glossary book to see the list then click the term in the right side of the window. If you click the term in the left side first, you have to click again in the right side to see the definition. It will be fewer clicks for the reader (more user friendly) to simply click the term in the navigation pane and see the definition below.

If Flare doesn’t offer the more user friendly approach, is it possible to add space between the terms in the right side of the window?

I have attached a picture to show the desired layout.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[wclass]

The tabs available in CHM output are dictated more by Microsoft rather than Flare. The example image you show looks a lot like what RoboHelp could generate but only if the users all downloaded an ActiveX control (and security conscious admins often turn this option off).

So in short, Flare can't do this out of the box.

[EileenP]

Ah - but you could create a help topic called Glossary, with popup links to all your definitions. Then create a custom button that opens the Glossary topic. That's what we did.

[Cal Wilson]

@EileenP

Thanks for responding!!!

Sounds interesting.

Could you provide more detail regarding the steps?

I understand the creation of the Topic (named Glossary for example). I am thinking the topic then would appear in the TOC.

I am not clear on the following:

Creating a custom button. Where would the button appear?
Creating the popup links in the topic. Would the terms be entered directly in the topic with the definitions being the popup? This would circumvent the use of the typical glossary setup function - yes/no.
How would the popups in the topic be different from the expanding text that is used in the standard glossary layout?

Do you have a sample of a final CHM so that I could see the approach.

Thanks for any additional information you have time to share.

[EileenP]

Hi, I am juuuuust getting started with Flare (converting from RoboHelp) but I'm 95% sure that this will work in Flare, too. Just let me finish importing my other project that includes this implementation, and I will get back (today or tomorrow) with answers to these questions.

[Cal Wilson]

@EileenP

Sounds good.

I too am just getting started with Flare (converting from RoboHelp).

After having used RH for some time and being comfortable, I am finding the conversion to be troublesome. I am missing many of the eaier to use RH functions.

I am more of a WYSIWYG user so having to deal with estoeric style names, tags, markerr, and know more about actually modifying the CSS directly in the code is not a lot of fun.

How's your conversion to Flare going?

[EileenP]

Ok, I got it working now. This is what it looks like:

(As you can see, I'm still using the trial version.)

The topic can appear anywhere you want in the TOC. You can index it, too.

Yes, this means you circumvent Flare's glossary setup function. (We didn't use it in RoboHelp, either.)
You can see the custom button in the screenshot. I used "Jump 1" and customized that as per Flare instructions.

Each glossary entry is created as a separate topic. Then, in the Glossary topic (and elsewhere) you create popup links to the glossary entries.


Huge advantage: Your glossary entry can include formatting, including bullets.

Hope this helps. Let me know if I didn't answer your question or was unclear.

Conversion from RH -- so far, so good. (Have been at it less than a day.) The Flare interface is a little challenging at the moment, but at least there are instructions available -- and this forum. I think it will work. We just got sick of all the idiosyncracies of RH. How about you?

P.S. If my image doesn't show up, then it means I still haven't figured out how to insert one.... Finally got it now.

[Cal Wilson]

@EileenP

Conversion from RH: It's been painful. Why RH had some interesting idiosyncracies, I found ways to work around them without much effort. I miss simple things like being able to press Ctrl+Shift+N to apply the Normal style like you can in Word and RH. Also, I find tables in Flare to be more difficult than I think they should be, especially when applying styles to text in cells. Multilevel numbering in Flare 9 is also a major pain point. I understand Flare 10 has some new multilevle numbering functionality. I could go on but won't. There are two writers here at my location, and we really hated to leave RH, but it wasn't our choice.

The image didn't appear.

To add an image, I use the Upload attachment tab.

[Cal Wilson]

@EileenP

I see the image. I will investigate this to see if the approach will work.

Thanks for sharing.

Good luck with your conversions, etc.

[EileenP]

One more thing you need to know to get the Jump button to open a topic within the current CHM file:

The path to the topic needs to be formatted like this (for example): /Content/glossary/Glossary.htm

I specified it like that in both the skin and the target. Without "\Content", the link won't work.

It took me awhile to figure this out, so I thought I'd post it.

[Nita Beck]

I miss simple things like being able to press Ctrl+Shift+N to apply the Normal style like you can in Word and RH.

There's a shortcut for that. F12+P. F12 opens the Styles window and P selects the p style.

Alternatively, you can use CTRL+SHIFT+H, which opens the Styles Picker popup window, and then press P, which selects the p style. You can even extend this shortcut to select a specific class of p. Say you've got a p.Note style (as many of us do). The keystrokes for that would be CTRL+SHIFT+H+P.N (or P.NO if there's another class of p that starts with n).

The Flare 10 Help system covers keyboard shortcuts here: http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... rtcuts.htm

For anyone interested, I'm giving away my Flare 10 keyboard shortcuts brochures, in which I've boiled the Help content down to two pages, as well as included some other tips. Some but not all of the shortcuts apply to Flare 9, too. If you'd like a copy, read more here: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 12&t=19155