Favorite Flare 7 Features

[Nita Beck]

So, all of you who have dived into Flare 7: What's your favorite new / improved feature -- or set of features -- so far?

So far for me, I like the new and improved Alias Editor. It's MUCH easier to use than the previous version.

I also especially like being able to insert snippets and variables with buttons on the XML Editor's toolbar -- minor differences, but ones that seem to have speeded up my insertion process.

And maybe it's my imagination, but Find and Replace operations seem faster, too.

[LTinker68]

I also especially like being able to insert snippets and variables with buttons on the XML Editor's toolbar -- minor differences, but ones that seem to have speeded up my insertion process.

My problem is remembering they're there. I'd asked for them, but I still go to the top menu out of habit, then I'm annoyed with myself for not remembering them.

The new paste method takes a little getting used to, too.

[RamonS]

Subversion support!

[DocuWil]

I like the improvements of the XML editor together with the Auto Suggestion.
But I am also very happy with the External Resources synchronisation option (e.g. to keep your dictionary at 1 place)

[lacastle]

Table formatting. Some of the GUI will take getting used to, but it was so nice to be able to copy text out of a table and paste it as regular paragraph text. I can't find the text-to-table or table-to-text feature yet, but i think it will be good.

[NorthEast]

For me...
- External Resources
- New alias editor
- Table enhancements, and being able to see table tags properly in the editor
- Preview in a particular target
- Chrome support

And also some small things like the Ctrl+; shortcut to add a paragraph tag in a list item.


But I've also noticed some other changes...

- The size of my WebHelp output has suddenly bloated by 20MB, as there are hundreds of new javascript (js) files

[LTinker68]

- The size of my WebHelp output has suddenly bloated by 20MB, as there are hundreds of new javascript (js) files

Interesting. JS files shouldn't normally be that big. I didn't notice the increase because the project I've been working on I've already selected the option to combine the JS files. It doesn't completely do that, since there are still ones for the glossary, alias, index, search chunks, etc. It's probably referring to the MadCapAll.js file, but that's only 411kb now, but my project is still small at this point. Check the sizes of your search, search_chunk, and skin JS files. The skin on mine is over 200kb, and the search ones probably grow depending on how large your project is. I only have 9 chunk files that range from 24kb to 39kb, but again, my project is still in its infancy.

[NorthEast]

- The size of my WebHelp output has suddenly bloated by 20MB, as there are hundreds of new javascript (js) files

Interesting. JS files shouldn't normally be that big. I didn't notice the increase because the project I've been working on I've already selected the option to combine the JS files. It doesn't completely do that, since there are still ones for the glossary, alias, index, search chunks, etc. It's probably referring to the MadCapAll.js file, but that's only 411kb now, but my project is still small at this point. Check the sizes of your search, search_chunk, and skin JS files. The skin on mine is over 200kb, and the search ones probably grow depending on how large your project is. I only have 9 chunk files that range from 24kb to 39kb, but again, my project is still in its infancy.

It's not related to the combine option.

The js files are in the Data folder; for every single XML file (e.g. search/index/TOC chunk files), you now get an additional js file of a roughly identical size.

In my 2500 topic project, that's an extra 300+ js files; which adds about 20MB to the output.

[TechnicalDisaster]

For me...
- External Resources
- New alias editor
- Table enhancements, and being able to see table tags properly in the editor
- Preview in a particular target
- Chrome support

Exactly my list as well.

[Nita Beck]

I played a lot yesterday with the enhanced TableStyle Editor. I think I'm ready to embrace using table styles, at least part of the time. I still can't get table styles to play nice if I have a table with some merged cells. But for "straight up" tables (i.e., ones with no merged cells), applying a table style works very nicely. I also LOVE that I can apply the table style to tables in a whole batch of topics in one operation. Lovely.

But... a wheel on my new Flare 7 tricycle is starting to wobble. I'm a little disappointed with Track Changes. See more here http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=12548

[Nita Beck]

Ooooh, here's a goodie. There's now a keyboard shortcut for "Make Paragraph Item(s)" in a list item. It's Ctrl+; Oh, I really like this little gem! No more right-clicking to open the context menu and navigating halfway down to "Make Paragraph Item(s)." Thank you!

[LKupka]

My favs ...
-- External resources
-- PDF tagging for accessibility
-- Cutting and pasting table rows, columns, and cells
-- Topic preview in specific target (with automatic populating of condition tags from target). Love the condition tag part!
-- Viewing WebHelp in my choice of browsers

I can't find the text-to-table or table-to-text feature yet, but i think it will be good.

Laura, for table to text, use Table > Convert to Text. Text to table isn't where you'd expect to find it. Select the text then select Table > Insert > Table. You have to select a conversion method (like Paragraphs) in the "Text to Table" section.

[KJohnsonDBTK]

For those asking about the new .js files in the Data directory, I asked tech support about that and they said those are part of the new Chrome support.

[clturner22]

Just me or does Flare 7 break the latest version of Chrome?

Ver. 10.0.648.127

[Nita Beck]

Just me or does Flare 7 break the latest version of Chrome?

What you mean by "break"? Prior to Flare 7, Flare-generated WebHelp wouldn't open at all in Chrome. With Flare 7, it does. What are you seeing that is "broken"? Just curious.

[clturner22]

What you mean by "break"? Prior to Flare 7, Flare-generated WebHelp wouldn't open at all in Chrome. With Flare 7, it does. What are you seeing that is "broken"? Just curious.

With the previous 9.x version of Chrome, Flare 7 played nice - not a problem at all. When I upgraded to Flare 7 launching a preview in Chrome caused it to go into a "crash loop" (do you want to restart? "yes" ... crash ... repeat). Uninstalled Chrome 10, reinstalled and tried again...same thing. It will not launch anything from Flare 7 after the first launch unless I close all instances of Chrome, use a program like CCleaner and re-launch. Then it will preview once and result in a silent click every other time.

No error messages, nothing.

Anyone else seeing this?

[rob hollinger]

Just upgraded to Chrome 10.0.648.133 and output appears to be working fine.

Question: How are you "previewing" the topic in Chrome?

[clturner22]

Question: How are you "previewing" the topic in Chrome?

Build/View Primary
View generated output - yes or
View output - select Chrome

Launches the first time then does not launch in Chrome afterwards.

Win 7 Professional 64-bit
SP1
Intel Core i7 870
8 GB RAM

[RossF]

Tables are getting closer to how they should be.

EPS image support.

Finally the Home and End keys work on lines instead of whole paragraphs! (little things like that can be quite pleasing)

[siskamoens]

Ooooh, here's a goodie. There's now a keyboard shortcut for "Make Paragraph Item(s)" in a list item. It's Ctrl+; Oh, I really like this little gem! No more right-clicking to open the context menu and navigating halfway down to "Make Paragraph Item(s)." Thank you!

Nita, how do you use this feature? I can't seem to get it to work.
I've tried to just place the cursor inside a <li> element in the editor and pressing Ctrl and ; --> did nothing
Then I've selected the <li> block in the left structure bar and pressing Ctrl and ; --> did nothing
In all desperation I even tried different key combinations: Ctrl and + and ; or Ctrl and + followed by Ctrl and ; --> nothing worked so far.

What am I missing here? Wrong key combination? Wrong selection in the editor?

[DocuWil]

Hi Siska

I've tried to just place the cursor inside a <li> element in the editor and pressing Ctrl and ; --> did nothing

And then go the end of the line and press ENTER. Then you will see the new paragraph within the list.

[siskamoens]

Nope, sorry. That just creates a new list item for me, no paragraph.

I must say that I'm using a Belgian AZERTY keyboard. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[Nita Beck]

Sorry, Siska. Didn't realize you had "pinged" me.

If you put the cursor at the end of the list item and then press Ctrl ; -- does that work? I'm pretty sure the cursor needs to be at the end.

[siskamoens]

No, it doesn't work even when the cursor is at the end of the line. I think I'll log a bug report with Madcap, maybe they can figure out what is going wrong.

Thanks anyway!
Siska

[i-tietz]

This shortcut only works on american or at least english keyboards. It also doesn't work with our keyboards (German), because to get the ";" we have to use the SHIFT already. That spoils it, cause the shortcut is "CTRL + ;" - no SHIFT in there ...