Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

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Richard W
Propeller Head
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri May 10, 2019 1:54 am

Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

Post by Richard W »

Hello,

I've just started to implement micro content in our search results. We want to have the whole of the micro content snippet visible at once at the top of the results, so that the user doesn't need to expand the display. (I'll make sure it's a suitable length by hand). I'm using the Side Navigation skin.

I've changed the Search Micro Content Response style in the HTML5 - Side Navigation skin to have "Size 100%", which ensures that the display box always fits the whole of the content at once. (I've also tried 105%, in case more space helped). This means that the whole of my micro content is always visible, but the Expand button / bar is also still visible even though it's redundant:
Flare search results cropped.png
The appearance of this button is controlled by the Search Micro Content Respond Expand style, but I can't see a way to hide it altogether. (Reducing it to height 0 doesn't work - it shows up as a very thin line but it's still there). I'm pretty sure you can turn it off, because the sample project that Paul Stoecklein provided during the MadWorld conference doesn't display it:
Sample project search results.png
I've not been able to find the way to turn this off though, even comparing the sample project settings with my own. The style settings in the skin, and the Search and Advanced settings in the target, are the same in the sample project as in mine (at least, in everything that looks relevant). Any ideas? Thanks!
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Psider
Propellus Maximus
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Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

Post by Psider »

The best I could find was this topic which has a section on what the madcap doc team does.
https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... ontent.htm

Under Skin Styles it looks like all they did was change the maximum height to larger. Perhaps there's a bug with percentage values. You could try a fixed pixel height to see how that goes.
JRtechw
Propeller Head
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:08 pm

Re: Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

Post by JRtechw »

Hi Richard,

I've successfully turned this off in my micro content results, which always show at 100% height with no expand/collapse present. Two possible causes:

1. You say you have edited the Micro Content values in the Side Navigation skin. There is also a dedicated 'Search Results' skin, which (I think) overrides the global skin settings. In your Target, is it possible that you have assigned a Search Results skin with the default values, and that the Search Results Skin is over-riding your global skin settings?
GlobalSkinSetting.JPG
2. You may have to apply more settings than the ones you've described. In my search results skin, I set:

a. Search Micro Content Response > Size > Maximum Height to 100%.
b. Search Micro Content Response Expand > Background > Image to none.
c. Search Micro Content Response Expand > Height to 0px.
d. Search Micro Content Response Collapse > Background > Image to none.
e. Search Micro Content Response Fade > Height to 0px.
SearchResultsSkin_NoExpand.JPG
Having said that, I have encountered erratic output in the early days when outputting micro content. Even though I'd set the skin properly, I'd still get the expand/collapse bar appearing in the output on our test servers. However, it never appeared when publishing live and the behaviour eventually stopped for no detectable reason.

Hope this has been helpful. Worst case, use dev tools in the browser to work out which MC styles to target and explicity set them how you want in your project stylesheet.
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Richard W
Propeller Head
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri May 10, 2019 1:54 am

Re: Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

Post by Richard W »

Psider wrote:Under Skin Styles it looks like all they did was change the maximum height to larger. Perhaps there's a bug with percentage values. You could try a fixed pixel height to see how that goes.
Yes, you're right - it works with a maximum height of 500 pixels (picked arbitrarily) and the button doesn't show up.
JRtechw wrote:2. You may have to apply more settings than the ones you've described. In my search results skin, I set:

a. Search Micro Content Response > Size > Maximum Height to 100%.
b. Search Micro Content Response Expand > Background > Image to none.
c. Search Micro Content Response Expand > Height to 0px.
d. Search Micro Content Response Collapse > Background > Image to none.
e. Search Micro Content Response Fade > Height to 0px.
This didn't work for me, unfortunately. I'm using the default skins, so there is nothing overriding my settings. Setting the styles above does make a bit of a difference - specifically setting the image to "none" means that you don't see part of the expand / collapse arrows and so the bar shows up just as two parallel lines and is fairly discreet, but it's still there on my machine. Possibly it might disappear at some point as yours did, but I'd rather not rely on it!

I can just use a maximum height in pixels for now - it does pretty much what I want, and since it's a maximum it's not like there's a lot of extra white space if my micro content is smaller. I don't mean to set larger microcontent than that anyway.

Thanks for the help!
joosilver12
Jr. Propeller Head
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Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:30 am

Re: Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

Post by joosilver12 »

Hello @Richard W,

I don't know if this is what you are looking for (and if you are still looking for :wink:), but there is an interesting option in the Skin window.

1. Open the skin that you use for your project.
2. Go to the Setup tab.
3. Under Micro Content Options:
- Set Featured Snippets View Mode to 'Plain Text'.
- Set Knowledge Panel View Mode to 'Plain Text'.

This way, you get the whole content of the micro-content snippet visible at once, and there is no expand button/bar anymore.

I have found this info in https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... ontent.htm (section "How to Change the View Mode in a Skin").

Hope this helps!
Richard W
Propeller Head
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri May 10, 2019 1:54 am

Re: Turning off the Expand button in search micro content

Post by Richard W »

Ah, thanks! A long time ago now, and my eventual workaround solution was fine... but that sounds like it matches what I wanted. I'll try it, thank you @joosilver12.
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