Tracking Topic Usage

[mattman63]

I'm sorry to be hogging this board, but as a new guy, I've got a lot of questions.

Is there anyway to track topic usage in Flare? For example, if I change a topic that's used in five different documents, is there anyway Flare can inform me of the five documents that need re-published, or maybe even re-publish them automatically? Or do I need to keep track of where topics are used manually?

[LTinker68]

For example, if I change a topic that's used in five different documents, is there anyway Flare can inform me of the five documents that need re-published, or maybe even re-publish them automatically? Or do I need to keep track of where topics are used manually?

Do you mean a topic that's used in five different outputs? Or do you mean a snippet file that's used in five different topics? I'm assuming you mean outputs. And, no, there's no automatic way for Flare to tell you that (I don't think). You can look at the View Links info for the topic (or its equivalent name in v5) to see what targets are associated with that topic. Which is kind of a roundabout way of going about it, since the target is associated with a TOC and it's the TOC that's associated with the topic. For print output, it'll only be the topics in the TOC, if the topics aren't excluded at the topic or TOC level. For WebHelp output, it'll be all topics in the project, unless they're excluded at the topic level.

So you can't see that info automatically, but you can see it manually.

[SteveS]

Hi Mattman63,

You could use global project linking so you store the topic in one location and link it to the projects using the topic.

Unfortunately this is a suck down, not push out, technology. Each time you build a target with a linked topic, it goes off and gets the latest version of that topic (or stylesheet etc). So, if you want to rebuild every time a topic is modified, you will need to maintain a record.

You could try a 'used n' table as part of the master topic and use conditional tags to make sure it doesn't get used in the targets.

HTH

[DurtyMat]

I don't know how your release process works, but you could do this:

Create a batch file that will build projects A - Z at <insert time> amd <recoccurance rate (aka everyday, every other, every friday) then set the import files to automatically reimport linked files before building.

Hopefully this solution works

[mattman63]

Hi, Durty,

So you're saying just rebuild all documents every week or so, and don't worry about tracking topic usage? That sounds like an incredibly inefficient use of computer resources, but it certainly does remove the burden off me. I'll see what the IT guys say about it. I might get back with you on that one for specifics.

[DurtyMat]

I don't know what your computer setup is but you could do the following:

1) if everyone is on desktops, have the builds done when people aren't in the office (aka late at night)
2) if everyone is on laptops, see if your IT department has a spare pc laying around that can be used as the departments build machine and have it build late at night (if all your projects are stored on a server)

if you cant get a computer or you shut all the desktops down at the end of the day, have your PCs build during each persons lunch and split the load up across the board. so if you have 5 writers and 15 projects have each team member's pc build 3 projects from 12-1 or whatever their lunch period is.