Flare 7, Analyzer 4 and the All-new MadCap Contributor

[lacastle]

Hi elephant in the room: Is it just me, but does anyone see $499 worth of upgrades?

Favorite v7 features - http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=12539
and I think most people are getting the upgrade as part of the maintenance package, right? It's probably a bigger to deal to pay $499 to upgrade if you're coming from a much older version of Flare.

[TechnicalDisaster]

Hi elephant in the room: Is it just me, but does anyone see $499 worth of upgrades?

I guess it depends on your deliverables, but for us It is worth the Table enhancements alone. Subversion integration and External Resources is gravy.

[rob hollinger]

Is there a way to find out whether a particular bug was fixed in Flare 7? I was given a bug number by Flare support, so I'm wondering if there is a way to look it up by number.

From as far as I know from earlier you will get an email indicating that a request has been honoured, but most of the times a little bit later on.

These should have gone out by now.
In the KB, there is a topic "Release Notes" that touches on all of them.
http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/

[Richard Ferrell]

Is there a way to find out whether a particular bug was fixed in Flare 7? I was given a bug number by Flare support, so I'm wondering if there is a way to look it up by number.

In the past Madcap Would send an email if it was fixed, you can always call support and ask them if it was fixed.

[Suzetteb]

How long does it usually take to get this email? We have one Platinum plan and nine Bronze plans. I need to get testing this upgrade and am chomping at the bit (can you see me from here?). Our purchases says he hasn't received it yet, so I'm just a little anxious here.

TIA

[LTinker68]

Mine came the day v7 came out and I have a bronze plan. I suggest you contact your sales rep or MadCap Support. It most likely went to someone else or it ended up in someone's junk folder and they didn't realize it.

[lacastle]

How long does it usually take to get this email? We have one Platinum plan and nine Bronze plans. I need to get testing this upgrade and am chomping at the bit (can you see me from here?). Our purchases says he hasn't received it yet, so I'm just a little anxious here.

TIA

Are you looking for an email about fixes, or one with your new license keys? I got the license key email around 3pm EST on the day v7 was released.

[Suzetteb]

I have to give MadCap praises here! They were able to track it down before the people here! I'm installing now. It's going to be a good weekend!

[homerchristensen]

No HTTPS support for sharepoint?
I'm trying out the new version 7. Was very interested in SharePoint integration, but all of our sharepoints are on https servers. Flare and Contribute both prepend the address one enters with http://. So our address ends up being http://https://sharepoint.ourserver.com.

[SteveS]

No HTTPS support for sharepoint?
I'm trying out the new version 7. Was very interested in SharePoint integration, but all of our sharepoints are on https servers. Flare and Contribute both prepend the address one enters with http://. So our address ends up being http://https://sharepoint.ourserver.com.

I'd suggest you lodge a bug report for this, use the URL https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx

[schultza]

I just upgraded to Flare 7. When I opened the application, I saw that my custom window layout did not appear. When I navigate to Window > Layouts, the Select Layouts option is dimmed; I have several custom layouts in Flare 6.1. Is there something special I need to do to import them?

[doc_guy]

Hi elephant in the room: Is it just me, but does anyone see $499 worth of upgrades?

I guess it depends on your deliverables, but for us It is worth the Table enhancements alone. Subversion integration and External Resources is gravy.

Ok, so a little late to the table, but I think you can make a very compelling business case for upgrading your instance of Flare to V7. Read my take on the new features on my blog. In the conclusion I list several reasons you can justify the cost to management.

[doc_guy]

I just upgraded to Flare 7. When I opened the application, I saw that my custom window layout did not appear. When I navigate to Window > Layouts, the Select Layouts option is dimmed; I have several custom layouts in Flare 6.1. Is there something special I need to do to import them?

Good question. I think that because Flare V7 is a separate installation from Flare V6 (you can run them in parallel) you will need to look at whatever custom layouts you had in 6 and re-create them in Flare V7. I don't know how those are stored (my guess is in the Windows Registry -- and if that is true be VERY careful mucking up the Windows Registry), so I can't give you specific help in converting them to Flare V7.

It is worth noting that if you have made ANY custom changes to Flare (say for example, editing javascripts so you can change the background color of highlighted elements in WebHelp output; or, changing source WebHelp files so that TOC entries wrap in the TOC panel in WebHelp output), then you will need to re-make these changes in the newer versions of Flare.

[super-structure]

Getting back to you on this directly Colin. Thanks.

No DITA enhancements? I thought native DITA authoring was planned for this release?

Can you also fill me in on what, if any, DITA enhancements are in v7 (or even planned for coming updates). This is issue no. 1 for me concerning upgrading.

[cinnponce]

I for one am disappointed that we no longer have a free review tool. Because of budget cutbacks and restraints, my company will not pay to purchase the licenses for Contributor. Had I known that Flare 7 would not support XEdit, I probably would not have updated to Flare 7, at least not at this point. It will be more work for me to send for reviews from SME's now.

[i-tietz]

Just had a first look at Flare V7:

aaarghhh:
- Shortcut CTRL + [ for the project organizer ... impossible for my keyboard layout ... will have to get used to ALT + v, then p ...
- I have to restyle our classes for dropdowns ...
- A blueish grey bar works for Windows Vista, Windows 7 or standard blue in XP but looks yucky in my green XP theme ... :

greybar_flare7.png

a lot better:
- Shortcut for the preview
- target conditons in preview automatically
- Pos1 and End referring to the line and not the paragraph ... sigh ... gorgious ...

[i-tietz]

Update of the aaarghhh section:
- Shortcut CTRL + ; ... not working ...

I'll post a bug report for shortcuts and keyboard layout.

[Andrew]

Hi elephant in the room: Is it just me, but does anyone see $499 worth of upgrades?

I'm a bit late here, but I'd almost buy on Auto Suggestion alone. That will save tons of effort -- no more interrupting what I'm writing to insert a variable, or waiting until I finish the sentence, or paragraph, or topic (and then having to remember to go back and do it, and not miss any instances). Not only is it giving us a welcome solution, but it's implemented damnably well (sooo easy to use).

The external resources feature enables us to finally create a sane workflow for embedding PDFs as "print versions" in our help, as well as a nice place for cross-product stuff we would otherwise have to add to multiple global projects (such as company and product logos, legalese pages, etc.)

Subversion integration reduces our reliance on other apps (such as TortoiseSVN) to manually manage our source control.

Preview in any target (using that target's conditions) is *great* for our topics that have more than two conditions. Saves a bunch of time clicking around with the conditions to verify that I got the effect I want for each target.

Alias editor improvements are great -- no more huge, nasty drop-down to find the folder you want (especially if you were using SVN, and had to scroll through multiple SVN folders for every single other folder).

This is an easy one for me to justify. Your mileage may vary -- if you didn't have any of these issues, then you may not see as much value.

[doc_guy]

No HTTPS support for sharepoint?
I'm trying out the new version 7. Was very interested in SharePoint integration, but all of our sharepoints are on https servers. Flare and Contribute both prepend the address one enters with http://. So our address ends up being http://https://sharepoint.ourserver.com.

MadCap has a fix for this that they are currently testing. Contact Support to get an updated .DLL file that will allow you to connect via HTTPS.

[wndsfr]

Any idea when the documentation (Relnotes/fixlist) for Flare V7.2 patch kit will be avialable?

Like most shops, I cannot install a patch into pre-production unless I know what fixes are in there.

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/Content/Fl ... _Notes.htm was last updated in March 2011.

[LTinker68]

The only thing I've seen regarding v7.2 was this KB article --> http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#PATF70