MadCap Software Forums

I have a project with many ordered and unordered lists that contain both explanatory graphics and tables. I'm looking for either tips on how to do it all through the XML Editor (Wisiwig) or how to get Flare to respect my carefully formatted tables (indented and spanning many lines) and lists I construct in the text editor.

The reason I leave the XML Editor end up in the text editor is that I can't seem to figure out how to switch the style context out of <LI> to <P> so I can embed some graphics after my <LI> text. What happens is that I start lists in the XML Editor and then switch to the text editor to add the graphics inside <P> tags. While I'm in the text editor, I format the lists with carriage returns and tab indentations so I can read them easily. Then, when I return to them later, I find that Flare has stripped out all my carriage returns and tabs and has stuck the entire list on a single line, which is very difficult to read and edit.

Flare also will take tables I've nicely formatted in the text editor and flatten them onto one line.

I'm looking for either a way to do all the work in the XML Editor or a way to get Flare to respect my formatting so I can easily edit the lists and tables in the text editor.

What am I missing?

Thanks,

Rob

The easy answer - you're missing CSS (cascading style sheets).

Tabs and extra spaces in a text editor mean nothing to html. CSS can add margins and padding to lists in [almost] any way you want.

To switch between <li> and <p>, press Enter at the end of an <li> (to make a new <li> on the next line) and then turn off the <li> formatting in the toolbar. it should default back to <p>.

Tables also have CSS styles (both in the main stylesheet and the table stylesheet).

There is a lot of information about CSS on the web and in books. The Flare help has information about table styles.

Laura,

Thanks for the tip about switching contexts in the XML Editor! That may get me past parts of my problem.

As far as the indentation issue, I don't think we're on the same page: my issue isn't with the output, which is nicely formatted by my CSS. Instead, my indentation issue is with the XHTML in the text editor--before it is processed by the CSS. In other words, I want to be able to format the XHTML so I can edit it directly if I run into problems in the GUI XML Editor. Unfortunately, Flare removes my nice formatting in the XHTML file (the raw file before it is processed by my CSS). For example, I'd like to be able to view my table XHTML in this form (with each element on a separate line):
Instead, Flare takes my nicely formatted XHTML and flattens it into one line so when I try to read/edit it in the text editor, I get this:
Any ideas?

Thanks,

Rob

What version of Flare are you using? As far back as version 4, I'm able to open a Flare topic in Notepad and the code will be line by line as in your first code block above, and not all on the same line as shown in your second code block. I don't remember if earlier versions appeared that way as well, and I don't have the earlier versions installed on this machine anymore to be able to test.

What text editor are you using to view the code? Perhaps it's the text editor you're using that has the problem. I tested in both Notepad and Dreamweaver and they both show the code line by line.

I'm using Flare 6.1 and just use the default internal text editor in the menu.

Maybe I should try editing them outside Flare in another text editor, but I still am suspicious about what Flare does after the file gets processed by the XML (GUI) Editor. I'm thinking that there is an internal mechanism that removes my formatting of the XHTML tags. This doesn't happen for all lists and tables, but it happens enough to be exasperating. Maybe there's a problem with tabs. Perhaps I should just use spaces for the indentation of the XML elements when I'm in the text editor?

using flare 9.1.2, July 2014 and still the same problem: flare steals all the carriage returns/line feeds of indented tables and even displaying the file in notepad++ won't repair this.

Any new ideas how I can talk flare out of this rude behaviour?

any help very much appreciated

Irina