Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

This forum is for all Flare issues related to the DotNet Help target, and the Dot Net Viewer
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alex
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Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by alex »

Does anyone know if it's possible to run Flare V5 & V6 and the respective dotnet help viewers on the same PC? Can you get around this by installing to different folders (or by some other way)?

I've just upgraded to V6 and discovered that the help and dynamic help included in our application doesn't display (because the help viewer distributed with the application is still at V5).

The rest of my scrum team won't be upgrading to the V6 help viewer until I get the green light to use Flare V6. When I uninstalled V6 and help viewer V6 and reinstalled help viewer V5, it all works fine, but I'd like to be able to test V6 in the meantime without losing the ability to work with the version of the help currently in the application.

Thanks,
alex
RamonS
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by RamonS »

Yes, by default, the different versions install into different folders. In regards to the viewer, you need to make sure that you use the right viewer. If you have the file extension of the DotNetHelp files registered against the viewer you may encounter problems when the version of help and viewer don't match. One thing to watch is that you may not be able to use a project in V5 once it was opened and worked on in V6.
LTinker68
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by LTinker68 »

I just tested it and what RamonS wrote is incorrect. Unlike with Flare and the other applications, the Viewer v6 installer uninstalls Viewer v5, so you can't run them side-by-side. I think they should, for the very reason you wrote, but it doesn't work that way. Make sure you submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
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Lisa
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RamonS
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by RamonS »

Woops, sorry about the Viewer part. Thanks for the correction, Lisa.
LTinker68
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by LTinker68 »

No problem. Your answer was my first response, too, but then I looked at my installed programs. I only had one viewer even though I have multiple versions of Flare, but I couldn't remember if I just didn't install the viewer with every new version or if the viewer uninstalled its predecessor, so I decided to test it.
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Lisa
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Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
alex
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by alex »

Thank you for confirming what I thought was happening. It is troublesome that the new version of the help viewer uninstalls the previous version without giving any options for being able to run both versions. I have filed a bug.

This could cause some issues if a user installs applications using different versions of the help viewer on the same PC... The help viewer is not backwards compatible, so one of the applications would lose the help, unless someone knows how to work around this...
RamonS
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by RamonS »

My guess is that eventually this issue goes away when DotNetHelp matures, but it really is a problem right now and shows the difficulties with proprietary solutions.
LTinker68
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Re: Multiple versions of Flare & Help Viewer

Post by LTinker68 »

RamonS wrote:... shows the difficulties with proprietary solutions.
Especially when the company that owns the proprietary solutions seems to stall on fixing bugs or adding new features to that solution.
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Lisa
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