Open a New Browser Window

[Pohutukawa]

By default, the WebHelp that Flare Madcap builds displays the Help in a tabbed Web browser window. If the user already has their Web browser window open and is displaying other stuff, some users find it annoying that their already open tabs are resized.

I've looked through the Skins area and the online Help, but I couldn't exactly find what I'm looking for: How do you open WebHelp in a new separate resized browser window without impacting an already open browser?

I'm running Flare v3.1.

Thank you

[LTinker68]

In the skin on the size tab, enable the "Use Browser Default Size". This will open the help in the browser at whatever size the browser window is currently set at or the size it was at when it was last closed.

[Pohutukawa]

In the skin on the size tab, enable the "Use Browser Default Size". This will open the help in the browser at whatever size the browser window is currently set at or the size it was at when it was last closed.

Thank you, but that's not quite what I am asking.

I want WebHelp to open a new browser window in the size and position specified in the Skin.

Any ideas, please?

[LTinker68]

You can't do it from within Flare. You can possibly do it from your application if the programmer sends the correct commands to the browser. If your help is always called in that manner, then it may not be a problem, but if the user launches the help outside of your program then the browser window will size to whatever you have specified in Flare.

I suppose there might be JavaScript or similar code you could put in the default.htm file, but not only would you have to manually add that code to the file every time you did a build and add it to the default_CSH.htm and default_Left.htm files, but it might still resize the browser window because it has to read the JavaScript all the way in to run it and that might occur after the help file has passed the size parameters to the browser.

In other words, I don't think you can have it both ways with WebHelp output. Your help either resizes the browser window to fit the size you specified, or your help automatically sizes to whatever the browser is set to.

[Pohutukawa]

Thank you.

Perhaps we can chalk this issue as a feature request: Offer an option to always open WebHelp in a new browser window so that already-open browser windows are not disturbed (resized or repositioned).

[LTinker68]

You can certainly submit it, but part of that might depend on the browser. For instance, I use Firefox and have it set to open items in new tabs instead of new windows. IE6 will automatically open in a new window (or replace the existing window), but IE7 also uses tabs so it may also be configurable to open new items in a new tab by default instead of a new window.

Is your help hosted on the local computer or a web server? If it's on the local computer then you might want to look into DotNet Help. That output has a self-contained window like HTML Help, but it's a more updated (fancier) display and can be run from networked drives, but it does require that your users install the DotNet Viewer. Or, more likely, you install it along with your application. You can see an example of the DotNet Help output by opening the Flare Help by going to C:\Program Files\MadCap Software\MadCap Flare V4\Flare.app\Resources\Flare.mchelpf and double-clicking on "Manual.mchelp" (assuming you installed the DotNet HelpViewer on your computer).