MadCap Software Forums

what would really be cool or important in Flare 6.

I don't know about Flare 6, but it'd be nice if Team Server made an appearance this year though.

Yep, I'm highly interested in Team Server.

For Flare 6, I'd really like to see some work on making it easier to do some common activities in Flare, such as inserting variables, snippets, etc. I'd like to see the conditions dialogs all work the same way (and preferably, better than any of them currently does). I would like the built-in Analyzer to stop requiring me to delete the whole thing when it periodically corrupts itself.

For further-reaching stuff, I'd love to see an enhanced version of DotNetHelp that works with Silverlight / Moonlight with nice full APIs. I like the direction they are moving with Relationship Tables, and I'd like to see them take that a step further and provide more customization, more automation, etc. I'd like to see a relatively easy method for plugging custom behaviors into things like togglers, so we can write some javascript or C# and add functionality to our WebHelp (for example, the ability to make togglers that close whenever another toggler is opened, etc.). I'd like to have macro capability, so I can automate sequences of steps in Flare that I perform over and over (such as inserting a ProductName variable, applying a PrintOnly condition, etc.).

i have a pretty strong feeling team server is being put through rings of fire by the internal tech writer's of MadCap's product documentation team. If anything they've got tonnes of documentation that looks very 'single-sourced'.

Unless something has changed, though, I think they only have one writer.

I'd like to see this:
- better source-control integration
- more support for file formats for both import and export
- WebHelp Plus running on Apache
- NO ribbon

I'd like to see some issues we've ran across and reported fixed:
*Truncation of the path in hyperlinks between projects when you have subsystems 3 or more levels deep.
*Slow serving from IIS on large projects due to multiple GETs of the same files (up to 13 times for some files)
*Topic conditionals not always being saved.
*Garbage characters in the log file for command line build.
I have to say it was disappointing to see these fixes not included in 5.0.1. The next version can't get here too soon for our use.

One I'd like to see:
* The ability to have a printed TOC that matches your TOC file structure, and isn't based on heading levels.

Andrew wrote:Yep, I'm highly interested in Team Server.

For Flare 6, I'd really like to see some work on making it easier to do some common activities in Flare, such as inserting variables, snippets, etc. I'd like to see the conditions dialogs all work the same way (and preferably, better than any of them currently does). I would like the built-in Analyzer to stop requiring me to delete the whole thing when it periodically corrupts itself.

For further-reaching stuff, I'd love to see an enhanced version of DotNetHelp that works with Silverlight / Moonlight with nice full APIs. I like the direction they are moving with Relationship Tables, and I'd like to see them take that a step further and provide more customization, more automation, etc. I'd like to see a relatively easy method for plugging custom behaviors into things like togglers, so we can write some javascript or C# and add functionality to our WebHelp (for example, the ability to make togglers that close whenever another toggler is opened, etc.). I'd like to have macro capability, so I can automate sequences of steps in Flare that I perform over and over (such as inserting a ProductName variable, applying a PrintOnly condition, etc.).

The condition tag and variable window improvements are high on my list. For the condition tags, I'd like to see them visible and docked in a pane (similar to how the Glossary Terms panel works) where you can apply a condition tag without opening up a separate window. I'd like to see this same principle applied to variables. We've done a lot of single sourcing through multiple releases over the past year, so these two improvements would significantly improve productivity.

gewriter_2 wrote:The condition tag and variable window improvements are high on my list.

Ditto. Snippets list, too.

Since I'm starting at it while I compile right now, I'd also like to see the 'Topic excluded from output' information removed from the build Errors log and moved to messages. I know it's excluded - I told you to do that. It would be much easier to sort through and troubleshoot errors if I didn't have to wade through that information.

A kind of tab structure for printed documentation instead of to have working with tables which remains a pain in the ....., especially when page breaks are involved.

Hi folks
In Flare 6 I'd love to see:

• topic status support. I'm currently trying to cover this using conditional tags and it doesn't work very well.
  QT help target would be great.
  some clearer way of graphically showing which conditional tags have been assigned to a topic, snippet and so on. At the moment the little squares are unclear after two tags.

Suze

Did all of you submit these proposals using the bug report form? If not, now is the time to do it and hopefully it is not too late for V6.

Customizable metadata at the topic level - for example, SME, Reviewer, Status. Alternatively, customizable markers, a la Frame.

Keith

Last year I attended a training class hosted by MadCap Mike and we asked him what is in store for v6.

If I remember correctly he said that most improvements for v6 will be in the flare user experience (which I think is good news). He also talked about a rather cool feature (that I can't remember grrrrr....only remember that I thought it was cool....will add it if it comes to me again).

Also, I thought that Team Server was delayed becaused MadCap re-allocated resources from Team Server development to Flare development to incorporate the DITA support for v5.

But ofcourse....I can be dead wrong. We will know soon enough I suppose. V6 will come to us in the coming months I expect.

Cheers,

Patrick

If "user experience" includes "making it easier to do a lot of the very common tasks" then I say Flare 6 sounds awesome.

NAPNAM wrote:Last year I attended a training class hosted by MadCap Mike and we asked him what is in store for v6.

If I remember correctly he said that most improvements for v6 will be in the flare user experience (which I think is good news). He also talked about a rather cool feature (that I can't remember grrrrr....only remember that I thought it was cool....will add it if it comes to me again).

Also, I thought that Team Server was delayed becaused MadCap re-allocated resources from Team Server development to Flare development to incorporate the DITA support for v5.

But ofcourse....I can be dead wrong. We will know soon enough I suppose. V6 will come to us in the coming months I expect.

Cheers,

Patrick

That's really great to know! And i think they have the chops to make it happen too. so that's pretty coool.

If I publish my PDF target also the stale files (GeneratedImages, Resources, catapult.log.zip, and <project>.mcbook) are published.
In my opinion there is no need to publish them. I always have to get rid of them.
The only thing I want to see is just the PDF file.
So, in a new Flare version it would be nice if that is changed.

Do you agree or are there other reasons? Maybe also some other outputs don't need these files?

I wonder if that greyed out counter in the toolbar is still going to be there?

SteveS wrote:I wonder if that greyed out counter in the toolbar is still going to be there? :D

They should offer a prize to anyone who guesses what it's for.

SteveS wrote:I wonder if that greyed out counter in the toolbar is still going to be there?

Ahaaah, maybe it is number of times you open Flare.
Try it.
Shut down and open again and the numer increases with 1.

DocuWil wrote:If I publish my PDF target also the stale files (GeneratedImages, Resources, catapult.log.zip, and <project>.mcbook) are published.
In my opinion there is no need to publish them. I always have to get rid of them.

The catapult file has some merit, it keeps track of which files were uploaded last and thus are current. Flare has an option that checks against this and publishes only those files that changed. I agree, in case of a single PDF it is a bit pointless.

RamonS wrote:

DocuWil wrote:If I publish my PDF target also the stale files (GeneratedImages, Resources, catapult.log.zip, and <project>.mcbook) are published.
In my opinion there is no need to publish them. I always have to get rid of them.

The catapult file has some merit, it keeps track of which files were uploaded last and thus are current. Flare has an option that checks against this and publishes only those files that changed. I agree, in case of a single PDF it is a bit pointless.

Perfect candidate for "improved user experience"!

I'd like Flare 6 to include fixes for launching WebHelp from Apache web servers in IE7, IE8, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.