How to get heading across top of 2 col. index

[ksoltys]

I am trying to get my index format set up. Allowing for the way that Flare formats indexes (which I don't like, but can live with for now), I have it pretty much the way I want, except for one thing. I have set my body frame to two columns. My index title (the word Index formatted as h1.IndexTitle appears at the top of the first column, then the second column goes write to the top of the frame.

indextitle.jpg

I want the two columns of index entries to appear below the word index.
I tried to set up a smaller body frame for just the index title, but Flare completely ignores the new frame as far as I can tell.
How would I do this?

[Nita Beck]

You won't like my answer: I want this, too, but I too can't get it to work. I don't recall now what I tried, but I eventually gave up. And I agree with you that the index formatting in general leaves something to be desired.

[ksoltys]

You won't like my answer: I want this, too, but I too can't get it to work. I don't recall now what I tried, but I eventually gave up. And I agree with you that the index formatting in general leaves something to be desired.

Actually, it has to be possible, because if you look at the MadCap PDFs that have indexes, they've done it. I think that it might be possible by creating a first page layout that brings the header frame down and I could put the Index title paragraph in that frame, but I'm not sure it would get picked up for the PDF bookmark pane.

I think it should be possible to get what I want with the CSS positioning settings for the h1.IndexTitle paragraph, but I'm not enough of a CSS expert to figure it out.

Keith

[Nita Beck]

I hope you haven't interpreted my post to mean that it's not possible.... I'm just saying that I too can't figure it out. I decided to cut my lost time and just let it go...

[LTinker68]

That's a known bug -- make sure you submit a bug report, too, at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.

I believe the workarounds are to use a frame in the title page of that layout that has "Index" written in it, or to have an "intro" topic whose body is just a heading that says "Index", and the indexProxy is actually in the following topic file. So it's two files, but in the output they end up on the same page, so it appears to be one topic.

[ksoltys]

That's a known bug -- make sure you submit a bug report, too, at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.

I believe the workarounds are to use a frame in the title page of that layout that has "Index" written in it, or to have an "intro" topic whose body is just a heading that says "Index", and the indexProxy is actually in the following topic file. So it's two files, but in the output they end up on the same page, so it appears to be one topic.

OK, will do. I did set up two body frames, with the first sized for just the IndexTitle paragraph, but I couldn't get Flare to recognize that my page had two frames when I generated the output.

I really wish MadCap would do what Quadralay does, and post a list of known bugs. A list of requested feature enhancements would be nice too - perhaps with a ranking system so we could vote on them?

Thanks for the suggestion about putting just "Index" in it's own topic. That's simpler than mucking around with page layouts that don't work the way they're supposed to. I should have thought of that, but I'm still getting used to Flare's way of working with topics.

Regards
Keith

[LTinker68]

I did set up two body frames, with the first sized for just the IndexTitle paragraph, but I couldn't get Flare to recognize that my page had two frames when I generated the output.

I don't think you can use two body frames if you're doing Word output. At least you couldn't in v4 -- haven't tried it in v5. I believe it should work for PDF output, but it causes a few other problems if you do it (e.g., two bookmarks appear in the bookmark pane of the PDF output).

[ksoltys]

I don't think you can use two body frames if you're doing Word output. At least you couldn't in v4 -- haven't tried it in v5. I believe it should work for PDF output, but it causes a few other problems if you do it (e.g., two bookmarks appear in the bookmark pane of the PDF output).

I did get it working using two body frames. I had to set up a First page, with a small single-column body frame for the IndexTitle paragraph, followed by a larger 2-column body frame for the index. The Normal page just has one 2-column body frame. Then I set the topic properties to start with the First page.

I did notice what appear to be some duplicate bookmarks in the Bookmarks section of the PDF bookmarks pane. I will probably just remove that Bookmarks part completely as it's just clutter as far as I can see.

Keith