Flare in Action!

This forum is for all Flare issues not related to any of the other categories.
jcoria
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Thanks mate

Post by jcoria »

I appreciate your feedback and response. I like the look. I wish i was more apt at code to fancify some items.

thanks again.

jC
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by doc_guy »

I posted this in another thread, so sorry for the double post, but I thought the post ought to be here too...
doc_guy wrote:If you're interested, today I published a new version of my online writing portfolio using Flare as the back end and a Flare WebHelp target. I'd previously used WordPress for my back end, but recently decided to switch that out for Flare.

My portfolio is located here:
http://www.paulpehrson.com :madcap:

I blogged a little bit about the change here:
http://blog.paulpehrson.com/2008/01/18/ ... ing-flare/

Hope you don't mind me tooting my own horn a bit, but I thought you might be interested in seeing a non-conventional use for Flare.
So there you have it. Another example of Flare in action.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by Richard Ferrell »

Wimba Uses Flare for the Webhelp systems and PDF's You can visit thier site at the following link

http://www.wimba.com/support/docs.php

Or go stratight to a few of their webhelp systems

http://www.wimba.com/webhelp/v5_0/LCPre ... _Guide.htm
or
http://www.wimba.com/support/pronto/web ... o_User.htm
or
http://www.wimba.com/support/voicetools ... rGuide.htm
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by forfear »

Sketchup by Google uses Flare !
to generate PDF and Webhelp. Amazing

http://download.sketchup.com/OnlineDoc/ ... suwin.html
If you submit your bug feedback request here, the more likely it'll get fixed or included in a future release
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RamonS
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by RamonS »

Here something that is more in line with the topic. I had to look something up while working on my time sheet and I consulted the help of our AutoTask system. The help looked very familiar. See for yourself here.
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Flare in Action!

Post by forfear »

If you submit your bug feedback request here, the more likely it'll get fixed or included in a future release
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forfear
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by forfear »

A superb site and working example of Flare and all the various custom knowledgebase components put into service.
There's quite a bit of advanced HTML/Styling going on with extensive use of DIVs

You have :
- custom mailto buttons.
- Custom TOC icons.
- javascript popup topic feedback/rating pages
- Custom styles for code keywords
- Sidebars for note pullouts, are highlighted in a box with a Note icon

Salesforce uses Flare!

http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/ ... /index.htm
If you submit your bug feedback request here, the more likely it'll get fixed or included in a future release
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LTinker68
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by LTinker68 »

forfear wrote:Salesforce uses Flare! http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/ ... /index.htm
That is a very nice site. Nice color scheme, and I love the Note DIV.

Kudos to whomever did that site.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by bbuchko »

Here's my first stab at WebHelp. I just started using Flare about a month ago, so be gentle!

http://www.ciscopartnertalentnetwork.co ... efault.htm

I'm happy to report that Flare was very easy to start using. I also made recruiter and administrator versions of the help, using conditional tags.

I intentionally made it very granular (you might notice most of the topics are very short). I expect a lot of users will use the search feature, plus I wanted the help to be very modular so we could provide in-context links to it.

Thanks to Lacastle for helping me synch the TOC to the open topic and create "outdented" headings! (Those changes will be deployed soon if they're not already.)

EDIT (11/10/08): Fixed link. We had to redo our directory structure, so the path had changed.
Last edited by bbuchko on Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by SteveS »

Looks good :D
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by bbuchko »

SteveS wrote:Looks good :D
Thanks! After reviewing the previous posts here, I made some revisions to the skin and stylesheet over the past few weeks. I think it looks a lot better now.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by forfear »

encouraging :)
If you submit your bug feedback request here, the more likely it'll get fixed or included in a future release
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by Richard Ferrell »

Add your Website using Flare Output and Get a Free Madcap Software T-shirt!
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by NorthEast »

We just released our first product to use WebHelp last week. The help isn't available online though, it is run from a server that's part of the product. It replaces a set of dated and clunky CHMs, and it has had a great reception so far. I've used a lot of other authoring tools, and I can't imagine I would've been able to produce help like this using anything else.
LTinker68
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by LTinker68 »

Very nice looking help, Dave. Well laid out, nice colors, and icons (especially the bullets). Although you spelled "Favorites" wrong. :P
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by NorthEast »

LTinker68 wrote:Very nice looking help, Dave. Well laid out, nice colors, and icons (especially the bullets). Although you spelled "Favorites" wrong. :P
Thanks.

You spelt colours wrong. :o)
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by KevinDAmery »

Settle down, folks: I don't want to have to separate ya'll if the topic of where end punctuation goes in relation to quotation marks comes up....

(And very nice looking help, Dave.)
Until next time....
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by RamonS »

Nice looking help indeed...and btw, I'm with Dave. When writing in English use proper English.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by KevinDAmery »

RamonS wrote:Nice looking help indeed...and btw, I'm with Dave. When writing in English use proper English.
Which version, though? UK English, US English, or Canadian (aka "real") English :D
Until next time....
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by RamonS »

Canadian is Frog English. :D
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by forfear »

The nicest help i've seen in awhile after the salesforce one. so many questions, how do you do that related sections thing. is that a dynamic component or is that linked manually. defintely not built with See Also controls are they?
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by NorthEast »

forfear wrote:The nicest help i've seen in awhile after the salesforce one. so many questions, how do you do that related sections thing. is that a dynamic component or is that linked manually. defintely not built with See Also controls are they?

The "In this section" box is the miniTOC, the "See also" box is a div that I add manually to the topic.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by Lucia »

Dave,

The "Welcome" page is exactly the kind of thing I want to do in the Help I work with. I'm wondering if you did it by adding a background image to the page and then a table with the options or if you had to program it in any special way?

Thanks.
Lucia
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by NorthEast »

Lucia wrote:Dave,

The "Welcome" page is exactly the kind of thing I want to do in the Help I work with. I'm wondering if you did it by adding a background image to the page and then a table with the options or if you had to program it in any special way?

Thanks.
The background image is set in a master page, using a body class. The master page contains a div tag (set to be semi-transparent), and this div contains the topic body. Then I just set any 'special' topics to use this master page.

1. Copy and paste these styles into your stylesheet.

Code: Select all

html.startPage
{
	mc-master-page: url('../MasterPages/Start.flmsp');
}

body.startPage
{
	margin-top: 0px;
	margin-bottom: 0px;
	margin-left: 0px;
	margin-right: 0px;
	background-image: url('../Images/StartBackground.png');
	background-position: left bottom;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-attachment: fixed;
}

div.startPage
{
	background-color: #ffffff;
	filter: alpha(opacity=95);
	opacity: 0.95;
	padding-left: 10px;
	padding-right: 10px;
	padding-top: 10px;
	padding-bottom: 10px;
	border-color: #c0c0c0;
	border-width: 1px;
	border-style: solid;
	width: 85%;
	margin-left: 5%;
	margin-top: 5%;
	margin-right: 5%;
}
2. Make a new master page named Start.flmsp. In the master page include the following:

Code: Select all

    <body class="startPage">
        <div class="startPage">
            <MadCap:bodyProxy />
        </div>
    </body>
3. Add the image you want to use as the background, in this example the file is called StartBackground.png and is in the Resources\Images folder.

4. To apply the 'page style' to a topic, open the topic properties and set the Topic Style Class to start.
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Re: Flare in Action!

Post by Lucia »

Thank you very much. I'm going to try it and later I tell the results.
Lucia
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