3 things I can't figure out - or 4

[Carsten Pedersen]

I have to admit I'm not happy with Flare. I have used it since the very first beta release and still find things that I can't figure out.

Let me just start by asking 3 questions:

1) Writing performance, ok we all know that the editor is very slow (.NET code, too many ambitions, small popups etc.) Impossible to write fast, but getting a little bit faster with every version (or because I upgrade my PC?
BUT how come the End and Home keys brings the cursor to the end and start of a text section and not the text line, as in all other programs Word etc.

2) Flare integrates with source control. But not standard VSS and SourceGear Vault etc. Asked or a solution for one year, nobody cares at MadCap!
I have no chance bringing this product to my technical writers since they don't want to work with Source Control clients etc.

3) I use TableStyles, but cannot define one for printed and one for online contents?

Oh yes, then after 1000 hours of writing you find out that the online help cannot be called?
See http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =8&t=10388

-cpede




http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =8&t=10388

[LTinker68]

1) Writing performance, ok we all know that the editor is very slow (.NET code, too many ambitions, small popups etc.) Impossible to write fast, but getting a little bit faster with every version (or because I upgrade my PC?
BUT how come the End and Home keys brings the cursor to the end and start of a text section and not the text line, as in all other programs Word etc.

First, regarding speed, I don't get small popups, so I must have some things turned off that you don't. IntelliSense, message window, etc. Perhaps turning some of them off will help. Second, regarding BOL/EOL jumps -- at first I was going to say that it's because the back end code for topics is mainly HTML, and BOL/EOL is based on the parent tag, but I just tried it in Dreamweaver and I am able to jump to the beginning or end of a line even if the opening or closing tag doesn't correspond to that position. I guess I just got used to not being able to do that in Flare or to using the up/down arrows instead. I definitely would like that capability, so I'll submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. Everyone who wants that functionality, do the same.

2) Flare integrates with source control. But not standard VSS and SourceGear Vault etc. Asked or a solution for one year, nobody cares at MadCap! I have no chance bringing this product to my technical writers since they don't want to work with Source Control clients etc.

I don't think it's that they don't care -- integrating into source control programs probably depends in part on popularity of the program, if its manufacturer has an SDK or API or whatever the term is for plugging into that program easily or if MadCap needs to write their own interface from scratch, and the time it will take to implement that plugin/interface into Flare, plus the testing of that new feature. And just because you believe a problem is popular doesn't necessarily mean everyone does. For instance, I've heard of VSS but not SourceGear, and some people have never heard of StarTeam. So if there aren't a lot of people submitting feature requests for a particular feature (in this case, source control integration), then it may not be high on MadCap's priority. So if your source control program isn't supported, then submit a feature request and encourage others to do the same.

3) I use TableStyles, but cannot define one for printed and one for online contents?

You can, although I can't remember if the functionality was always there or if it was added in v3 or v4. In the Flare Help, go to User Interface Elements - How to Use Each One > Creating Table Styles for Print Output.

Oh yes, then after 1000 hours of writing you find out that the online help cannot be called?
See http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =8&t=10388

I'm sure it can be done. I know here we had a program written in C## that called to an HTML Help output, but I don't have access to the program code so I can't tell you how it was done. I gave the programmer the info in the Flare Help related to that, but I think he still had to Google to get the exact code or something. But as was mentioned in the thread above, most of the users of this forum probably aren't programmers, so your best bet might be a Google search or to go to a C## programmers forum. HTML Help has been around a long time, so I'm sure there's code out there somewhere.

[RamonS]

I hear ya! For 1): that is something I complained about since before version 1 came out, or at least a long time ago. It is an annoyance because every editor works the way you expect it, except for the Flare editor. It is a major flaw and I guess the fact that MadCap doesn't want to fix it made me deal with it. The speed issue was way worse in the earlier versions, they really made the editor perform well. not great, but well.

For 2): Back when this topic came up I recommended to MadCap that they should use command line tools that can be customized with a set of scripts that work out of the box. Since using the command line is not in the Microsoft bible it had to be done through an entirely proprietary API that doesn't seem to work right half of the time. We used VSS and now Vault without issues on the command line through scripts. At least they could have done both.

For 3: I got nothing, I usually go with the canned stuff until someone complains.

For 4: The CHM platform is so old that they added a section for it in Yurassic Park. More and more restrictions and exceptions got stapled on there that make it even more difficult to use. Still, the calls are standard calls that go straight to the CHM viewer provided by Microsoft. I'd check if the CHM Viewer can handle skins and if the way the skin name is passed is correct. In this case I recommend contacting MadCap support directly or posting the question on developer forums. As pointed out, the folks who hang out here are typically tech writers who make the developers do this type of work, after all, that's what they are there for.

[Carsten Pedersen]

Hi and thanks for the answers.

1) Yes the editor is faster in the later versions, and the pop-ups can in most cases be removed. But it is still awkward to work with, maybe because of the strange right and left brackets, underlines etc. and of cause the non-standard use of the Home and End keys.

2) The result of the non-working source control is that I cannot recommend this too for my tech writers. Because if you say that it is mostly tech. writer who are using Flare, I'm sure that they don't want to spend time using command line tools and third party clients to check projects and file in and out.
And yes it is weird that we can write command line scripts that do the work in 10 minutes using what's standard API, and MadCap can’t?

3) I will look that up, but why not just use the media tags used in the standard css?

4) I have looked this up and I have used other online help writing tools and the syntax I describe is the correct one, it just don't work with Flare projects.

-cpede

[RamonS]

3) I will look that up, but why not just use the media tags used in the standard css?

4) I have looked this up and I have used other online help writing tools and the syntax I describe is the correct one, it just don't work with Flare projects.

-cpede

For 3: That is because the media tag in CSS is intended to control output on the client side. For example, you make WebHelp and want to control how it gets printed from the browser, the print layout would go under media:print. That is not the same as going straight to a print output in Flare. At least, that is the theory. I never bother much with styling for different client side output methods, due to the bad print jobs that browsers do in general people got used to crappy printouts. And with tons of smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and web enabled refrigerators the question is if there really is a need for printing anything that requires an optimized layout. Sorry, I digress....

For 4: You say it works for other online help tools, does that include specifying skins?

[twmarcb]

I find the editor to be very responsive. I did have to remove the pop-ups and other annoying "features" but I find it at least as easy to use as Word 2007 and actually I would HATE for MadCap to replicate Word, which is meant more for college papers than professional writing. I like the control I have over everything in my Help topics and over the years really appreciate the ability I have to customize the output.

I've never been able to use the source control features successfully and frankly gave that up a long time ago without thought. We check files in and out every day and sometimes several times a day in the heat of a project just like we would do with a PDF or Word document.

Pre-Flare we used epublisher pro, which had no source safe options and was very clunky and forced us to work with Word which is painful in a fast-paced professional environment. It would typically take us an hour for each build, which we would have to run through MS HTML Workshop to incorporate all our customizations.

[RamonS]

I think we all agree that we do NOT want a Word clone. The original complaint was about behavior of specific keys, for example the Home key does not go back to beginning of the text line on screen, but somewhere else and you need to use the cursor keys to get to the desired spot. My complaint about the cursor control is that I have to press the keys twice to jump to the next line. I understand the point of being able to place the cursor between lines/tags, but I'd like to see that functionality to come into play with Shift+Cursor or Ctrl+Cursor. I think that the current default behavior is very distracting when editing content.