TOC editor will not stay put

[C_Yeager]

I have looked in the help.... tried to get up to speed on the real estate parcels and behavior of the work area. However, coming from Robohelp, I lived and died by the TOC tree, which I was able to secure on the left of my workspace and where it would remain until I moved it, happily opening topics for me all day long. I cannot seem to get the "TOC Editor" to do this at all. I have figured out how to open the topics, rather than the link properties, by double clicking, (that was an immense relief) but now whenever I open a topic, the topic seems to take over the TOC editor's window, and the more I play with it, move it, dock it, the more it ends up god knows where.

Can this TOC editor send the link it is opening to a target different from itself? Can I make it stay put and open on the left of the pane? Please don't tell me I have to re open the TOC editor every time I want to open a topic from it...

Somewhat perplexed.....

Chris Yeager
Aspentech Inc.
Burlington, MA

[SteveS]

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the forums.

If you want to open topics the best place to start is the Content Explorer. This pane is at the left of screen with default settings, although you can drag it and dock it wherever you prefer. Once open it is much like Windows Explorer, folders can be expanded to show files. If you prefer you can switch to file view, where the selected folder's contents are shown in a split window.

A sister to the content explorer is the project organiser. This contains the 'background' stuff for the project, stuff you're less likely to edit once you start getting down and dirty, writing topics and the like.

HTH

[C_Yeager]

Thank you for responding. Are you saying that I can't use the TOC editor to open topics in the way that I want to, where I just park it on the left and it opens topics in a different pane on the right? I know some people use the Content Explorer (which is basically just a directory view) to open topics... but I use the TOC to select and organize my output and my mindset is more oriented to that structure... Is it impossible in Flare to have the TOC Editor 1. "sticky" in one place and 2. open topics in a different target area other than itself. PS- I have tried the save-views deal, its useful to an extent, but only in getting me back to the TOC when I want to open another topic.

[wclass]

It's possible. You can drag, move, and dock windows to either side of the screen, or even float them elsewhere.

Open the TOC as normal, then use the mouse to grab and drag the tab with the file's name and move it. You can float it to another screen, or dock it in the left navigation panel if you want.
Search for "customize workspace" in the help for more details.

FYI - I use the Content Explorer to open topics, not the TOC. I have many TOCs and not all topics are in a TOC so using the Content Explorer is way more flexible. I use the show files toggle often to select several files at once, includng condtions, and I right-click to get a topic's properties and view links.

[ChoccieMuffin]

If you do want to save your TOC to the left bit, I suggest you also save your layout so you can reload it if at any time you change your screen layout.

[C_Yeager]

I have saved layouts, and that's fine, but I should not have to use them every time I open a topic, and the layout changes itself. Seriously, what is so hard about this? TOC on left, topics on right. There is plenty of real estate for an arrangement like that, and everything else. Maybe I'll make a little video to show what I mean...

chris

[LTinker68]

TOC on left, topics on right.

I'm not seeing the behavior you're seeing. I'm able to do what you want to do with Flare. Maybe it's a version capability; what version of Flare are you running?

If I set the TOC Editor's toggle option so that double-clicking a TOC entry opens the topic and not the TOC entry, then undock the TOC Editor and move it to the left pane and dock it, then double-click on a topic in the TOC Editor, then that topic opens in the XML Editor, where it normally would open. The TOC Editor remains in the left pane. So Flare (at least v10) can do what you want. I did have a hard time floating the TOC Editor when there was another topic or file open in the XML Editor, but that might just be because I haven't re-arranged my layout in awhile and forgot how to float a single tab instead of the whole XML Editor.

In any case, Flare can do what you want. You might want to contact Flare Support and let them remote to your computer, if that's allowed at your work. They can see what you're doing or show you what needs to be done to get it to work.

[Msquared]

I do exactly like you want. I dock the TOCs between the Content Explorer/Project Organiser and the main topic pane. I set this up to show the TOCs in an accordion.

I saved the layout as a named layout, then set my layout to that. If I remember correctly, you can specify it as your default layout, and if so, I've probably done that too. Occasionally, Flare resets my layout to default (like when I installed Flare 10), so I just set it to the layout I want again. But most of the time, it works fine.

There are a couple of bugs unfortunately. One is that when I saved the layout, Flare encoded the saved layout incorrectly, so each time I opened it, the TOC area was present, but really narrow, so I had to resize it. MadCap support gave me a hack for the saved layout file to fix that - I can look that out for you if required.

The other is that when you have a topic area full of topics, and you do "Close all except this topic" to clear some of them away, the TOC closes too, even though it's not in the main topic pane. You just have to open the TOC again, I'm afraid. There is no way to tell Flare to keep the TOC open. I've reported that as a bug too.

Also note that if you have Flare's open mode set to not open topics that were open last time, then the first thing you have to do is to open your TOC(s) as they will have been cleared with everything else (I think the default is to open everything that was open last time, but that can cause problems for me). But once you open a TOC, you should find all the TOCs dock nicely where asked them to.

[C_Yeager]

Thanks everyone for the replies... It sounds like this is something Flare is not really set up to do... Which is weird. You have to constantly fake it into behavior that it should be doing by default. It is a powerful tool, but every software program has these what the old timers call "rabbit punches"... I think I just discovered one. We have expensive tech support, I guess I owe them a call.

Chris

[C_Yeager]

People, I found it.... File > Options > General > Close others when opening new document. The default on a new install seems to be "No Action", which has the effect I want, leaving the TOC where I put it. I found it had been set (by me) to "close others" .... I probably thought "well, that sounds OK..." not realizing that Flare treats the TOC as a document. Forgot about it completely. Setting it back to No Action leaves my TOC blissfully undisturbed by opening .htm files. Thank you all again for hanging in with me....

chris

[mdfberman]

I have saved layouts and my "Close others" option is set to No Action.

But when I close Flare, reopen, and choose my saved layout, any TOC I subsequently open is opened in the main pane, and not opened in the left pane.

This used to work in Flare 11. Now I'm on Flare 2017.

Every time I open a TOC, I have to float it and drag it to the left. Flare used to remember (and keep with my saved layout) that I want all files with a .fltoc extension to open on the left.

Any ideas?

Marta

[devjoe]

This was a known bug in the 2017 versions, fixed in 2018.