Masterpages

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Masterpages

Post by SteveS »

I've created a series of instructional blogs about using masterpages.

http://stevesalter.net/WordPress/

Pity no-one liked the original pink theme... :shock:
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Re: Masterpages

Post by forfear »

Brilliant little piece.

More more more more.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hello,

I went through the series of instructional blogs and found them very useful. However, as a beginner, i am finding it very difficult to add master pages. It would be great if you could help me start with.

Here is what is my requirement and what i have done so far.

I have the following:

Title page.
Chapter page or 1st pg of the section has no header or footer.
Odd pg : Has a header with only a border; footer with pg no. in roman numerals starting from (ii) & aligned left and docname product name aligned left, and a border line above the footer. The Chapters in the following section have numeric page no;s. 1, 2, 3 and so on.



Simlarly i have different format for TOC, Chapters , Appendix and Index.

I have used Factory templates - Printed doc Masterpage.flmsp and have defined variable for Doc and product name.

As far as i have grasped i need to create different master pages for each section and assign to the appropriate topics. Please let me know how to proceed.


Thanks & Regards
Shalini
KevinDAmery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

What you're going to do is create different classes for the HTML attribute in your stylesheet, then link those classes to different master pages. You can then apply the appropriate class to each topic using the topic's properties.

There is a Knowledge Base article about how to do it here:

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/Default_CSH.htm#FMP1001F

HTH.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the help. As stated in the prevous mail, I am not able to design a master as per the requirements laid below.

Title page.
Chapter page or 1st pg of the section has no header or footer.
Odd pg : Has a header with only a border; footer with pg no. in roman numerals starting from (ii) & aligned left and docname product name aligned left, and a border line above the footer. The Chapters in the following section have numeric page no;s. 1, 2, 3 and so on.

I am not able to change page no. style, for example or insert a border in the footer or header section.

Thanks & Regards
Shalini
KevinDAmery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

To have different content appear on different types of pages, you need to put multiple headers / footers in the master page and apply the "first page" "even page" and "odd page" classes to the appropriate ones.

To change the number style from roman to arabic, what you would need is two different master pages (one set up for roman and the second for arabic). You can then change from the first style to the second style by adding a Section Break to the appropriate topic in the TOC. (The help on Sections describes how to do this.)

For the line, the simplest thing would be to put a table in the header or footer and apply a line style to one edge of the table. This will also allow you to separate content (for example, put the heading name or the document name in the center and the page numbers to the far left / right of the page).
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hello Kevin,

Thanks again. My query is that if I have different page no. format for different sections, for example, Section 1 has roman small case numbers, Section 2 has numeric page numbers 1, 2 and so on, then can this be achieved by defined the format in the section break section in TOC? Or does the format specified there relates to the section numbers?


Regards
Shalini
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

You would define the number format in the master page--that's why you need two of them. For example, I have a Word_output.flmsp that uses arabic numerals and a Word_output_rom.flmsp that uses roman numerals. In the first section (which has my TOC and front matter) I use the word_output_rom master page, then I insert a section and specify the Word_output master page to switch to arabic numbers.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi,

Unfortunately, I haven't succeeded in setting different page no. formats for different sections inspite of associating the master pages with the topics ( I was trying to use Roman small case for section 1 and numeric page no.s for section 2).

Apart from this, I have come across one more issue. In the main style sheet, I expanded the "Unclassified" category and had set mc-master-page property to the master page that will be used by default on the topics. Now when i try changing this master page later on ( I now want to use diff. one), I am not able to. It does not allow me to set to a defult value also. Can anybody please help me out? I am using Flare 3.1. Moreover, my default master page is overlapping with the master page defined for a topic (I am trying to use multiple master pages in a project).

Regards
Shalini
KevinDAmery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

Have you defined a master page in the Target? If so, that's the problem: the master page should be defined in the target only if you want one master page for all topics. If you want to use different master pages for different topics, in the target you should set the master page to "default." (Or is that what you're referring to when you say "It does not allow me to set to a defult value also" ?) Basically, you should define your master page either in the TOC or in the target, but not in both places at the same time.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi,

i think I forgot to mention in my earlier post. In the main style sheet, I selected the HTML tag and expanded the "Unclassified" category, and had set mc-master-page property to the master page that will be used by default on the topics. Now when i try changing this master page later on ( I now want to use diff. one), I am not able to. It does not allow me to set to a defult value also.

Thanks for the reply. This time, I have defined the master pages only in the TOC :D .
I am still not able to use multiple formats for page numbers in my manual.

Regards
Shalini
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

Ok, I think I see what you problem is--it looks like you may have missed a step when adding master pages to the html tag. Instead of applying the master page to the main html tag, you should create two or more classes for that tag. You'll need one class for each master page. Then you assign the appropriate master page to the class. You'll be able to choose which master page to use for each topic by selecting the class in the topic properties dialog.

I'm not following you when you say you're not able to change the master page in the unclassified section. When I open the mc-master-page property, it gives me a list of all my master pages and I can select the one I want. Is that not happening for you? If not, can you describe exactly what does happen?
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Kevin Amery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

KevinDAmery wrote:Ok, I think I see what you problem is--it looks like you may have missed a step when adding master pages to the html tag. Instead of applying the master page to the main html tag, you should create two or more classes for that tag. You'll need one class for each master page. Then you assign the appropriate master page to the class. You'll be able to choose which master page to use for each topic by selecting the class in the topic properties dialog.
Hi Kevin,

What I did was that I added master pages to the main html tag and also created three more classes for that tag. I also assigned the appropriate master page to each class. Now, the problem is that I am neither able to change the linked master page either to the class or main tag (specified in html > Unclassified > mc-master-page) and also not able to delete the class.

How do I do this?

Regards
Shalini
KevinDAmery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

I don't think the stylesheet editor lets you delete classes, so if I had to I would just open it in a CSS editor and delete it there.

Before we get to drastic, though, post the CSS code for the html tag and the classes--I'll take a look and see if I see anything out of place.

(Just so you know, I'm in the EST time zone and Monday is a holiday here, so depending on which time zone you're in and when you post the sample I may not get a chance to look at it for a few days.)
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi,

Attached here is the snippet. I was trying to change the mc-master page entry to default (This is ../MasterPages/chapmaster.flmsp at present) ans was not able to.

Regards
Shalini
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

What happens when you click on the master page name? That's where you should be able to change it. (I'm still not clear what you mean when you say "unable to change it" - do you mean you can get it to select, or something else?)

One thing, if you only have one Master Page, it will be the only option shown.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi,
I have multiple master pages. I want to set the master page name to default (not to other master pages also) and am not able to do so.

Regards
Shalini
KevinDAmery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

Ok, but you still haven't answered:
KevinDAmery wrote:What happens when you click on the master page name? That's where you should be able to change it. (I'm still not clear what you mean when you say "unable to change it" - do you mean you can get it to select, or something else?)
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi,

I am able to select the master page name. In my case it is chapmaster.flmsp. I wan to set this back to defalut and that what it is not allowing me to do.

I am attaching the snippet of the same. May be this could make it clear.


Regards
Shalini
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KevinDAmery
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Re: Masterpages

Post by KevinDAmery »

If you click on the (default) item in the menu, what happens? When I click on it here, it switches the selection back to the default as expected.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by LTinker68 »

If for some reason you can't set the masterpage back to default through the Stylesheet Editor, then you can remove it by right-clicking on the stylesheet file in the Content Explorer and selecting Open with > Internal Text Editor from the menus that appear. That opens the stylesheet in a plain text format. Scroll through the stylesheet looking for the <html> tag. It could be at the top and/or it could be lower in the stylesheet, depending on when you assigned the masterpage (there could be several instances of the tag, too). There will be a property in the <html> tag that specifies the masterpage. Just delete that entire line and save the stylesheet.

For example, remove the masterpage line in the following code...

Code: Select all

html
{
	mc-master-page: url('../MasterPages/topicMaster.flmsp');
}
...so that the code now looks like this:

Code: Select all

html
{
}
Note, though, that if you have a masterpage still specified in the Target, then it'll still be applied to the topics, even if you remove a masterpage from the <html> tag. The masterpage specified in the <html> tag will override the masterpage specified in the Target, so if you don't want any masterpages, then you have to remove it from both locations.
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Re: Masterpages

Post by svaishnav »

Hi,

Thanks a lot for the help Kevin and Lisa. Kevin, I was not able to set it back to default as rightly pointed out by you. I used Lisa's method to remove the master page (Open with > Internal Text Editor ) and it worked.

Regards
Shalini
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