Frame 10-Flare 7: efficient mapping of aliases?

[rgrace]

I am using Frame 10 as the front end for writing, and Flare 7 as the WebHelp output engine. Very impressed with Flare compared to RoboHelp. Not doing single-sourcing.

I need a more efficient way to use TopicAliases rather than using Flare's Alias Editor to individually assign each identifier to a topic. That simply is a non-starter - I have over 200 topics. Far too confusing. The correct list of identifiers DOES appear in the Alias Editor, so I know Flare is seeing them during the Frame book import into the project.

All TopicAlias markers are set in Frame at L1 headers and at "chapter" headers, with formatting similar to the following:

01_getting_started_intro (this is a marker on a chapter header)
01_06_ui_elements (this is a marker on a L1 header)

Both levels are treated as separate topics. These values determine the HTML topic file name. (It works fine in RoboHelp.) Each value corresponds to the actual header title though not identical. The naming convention is necessary.

FIRST Question: How do I get Flare to stop automatically naming its topic files with the first 24 characters of the header text and use my TopicAlias values instead?

I also have a marker type called helpID that pairs up with each TopicAlias to provide the calling value for the software I'm documenting, to each topic for context-sensitive help. The HelpID values are embedded in the software and cannot be changed. Here is an example of a mapping:

<HelpID="settings_netmrisettings_authentication" Link=06_01_authentication.htm" />

I am able to generate a list of TopicAlias markers in Frame and have done so. Same for helpID markers.

SECOND Question: Can I use the lists of markers (LOM) from Frame to get Flare to automate its use of TopicAlias values?

Thanks in advance for anyone's help.

[GregStenhouse]

FIRST Question: How do I get Flare to stop automatically naming its topic files with the first 24 characters of the header text and use my TopicAlias values instead?

You need to have "FIlename" markers with the appropriate text to bypass Flare's naming (Flare will instead use whatever is in the Filename marker).

SECOND Question: Can I use the lists of markers (LOM) from Frame to get Flare to automate its use of TopicAlias values?

Flare will take whatever is in TopicAlias markers, use that for the identifier, and assign it's own ID. From the help topic "CSH Calls for WebHelp and WebHelp Plus—Developers", it looks like developers can use either the identifier or the numeric value in their calls. For your case it looks like you would use the identifier (which means you are basically ignoring the numeric value that Flare is assigning)

So in summary, I think what you need to do is:
rename all your 'TopicAlias' markers to 'Filename'
rename all your 'HelpID' markers to 'TopicAlias'

HTH
Cheers
Greg