Where does "Topic.gif" live?

[kevinmcl]

This sounds like a simplistic question, with a simple answer, but I'm having the devil of a time nailing down where the SOURCE copy of that file lives. After years with the closed and open books for ToC groups and the question-mark page as the icon for individual topics, our corporate graphics folk want me to switch to the " + " and " - " icons - like in contracted and expanded tree views, and a little right-pointing arrow as the icon for individual topics.

I hadn't changed it in about five years, so I NATURALLY thought to look in my PROJECTs, where I found dozens of the dratted things. Replacing any/all of them failed to yield a change in published output (except swapping post-publish, which is anathema).

Finally, it dawned on me that Flare keeps it way the hell over in C:\Program Files(86)) with the program source code, and NOT with the PROJECT files.

What's the definitive location... the one that I want to change so my project picks up the new version every time and doesn't forget/revert-back?

OR, what are the several places I would need to specify a new something.gif filename via Flare's editor, if I wanted a project to reliably call that new icon, WITHOUT me replacing the Topic.gif file in Flare's app data? A Windows search seems to show it mentioned in a bunch of XML files.

[SteveS]

Quick search of my program files...

"C:\Program Files (x86)\MadCap Software ... Topic.gif"

Windows 7, 64 bit. If you don't have a 64 bit system the top directory is plain program files.

Make a backup, insert a new image and see if that's the one!

HTH

[kevinmcl]

After a lot of unproductive nastiness, I rebooted, re-started Flare, and it let me do the change that I wanted - after quietly refusing for several hours over three days. I don't know what changed, but the dialog in "Skin Editor > Styles > TocEntry Properties > TocIcons " finally deigned to accept the change, and my chosen icon seems to be working...

Oh....
Also, while I was trying to make changes with that dialog before, it would go through the entire sequence of browsing for an icon file and then quietly end without accepting the change. The only other clue was that the Skin name in the editor tab did NOT have an asterisk (the sign that there's been a change that needs saving). After the latest reboot and restart of Flare, the change was finally accepted and the tab took on an asterisk, after which I could save the change. Woof! Finally!

Everything lives on my laptop (no involvement of external drives or servers), and I made no changes to folders or permissions or anything else that could account for the past few days of frustration. Just another week of working with (against) Flare.

-k

[kevinmcl]

It's now a couple of weeks later, and I'm experimenting with Flare 8.

I created a skin that I associated with HTML5.

I opened it in HTML5 Skin Editor, went to the Styles tab, selected TocEntry from the Styles list.

In the Properties pane, immediately to the right of the Styles list, I have "Icons".

I expand "Icons" to see "OpenBookIcon", "ClosedBookIcon", "TopicIcon", and "MarkAsNewIcon".
For each of the first three, I browse to my project's "Resources\Images" directory and pick the relevant icon from among the images I have there.
I do a File > Save all.

I Build and Publish.

When I look at the output, the ToC has the original icons that came with Flare 8 (blue books). Unchanged.

When I go back into my project and look at the Skin, the new icons (mine) are pointed to, and each one shows the expected preview, just above.
So what else am I supposed to be doing to cause my icons to replace the original Flare-supplied ones in my Help output.
Other aspects of the output DO show my skin changes (like replacing the Flare logo with our corporate logo).
What am I missing?

Windows 7, Flare 8.0. I've rebooted, and restarted Flare. No change.

-k

[wclass]

Someone else asked that - there are two places where the icons are set and you want "Navigation Panel > TOC > Icons" - have a look at:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=14765

I raised a bug noting this (https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx).

[techwriter31]

I filed this as a bug too. From what I found, if you use the default Flare icon names for the TocEntry icons, it works. If you want to use different icon names, you have to set it in Navigation Panel > TOC > Icons, or it will default back to the Flare built-in icons.

Another thing I noticed - our Webhelp icons included some whitespace around them. When I tried to use these icons, they appeared to "jump" around. Once I removed the whitespace in the graphics, this stopped happening.

[kevinmcl]

Thanks.

So, if it requires changing the pointers in both places, what is happening under-the-hood if you change it in only one place.

Is there a potential problem from having one-of-two required settings changed, while the other is not.
Does some dangling misfortune linger, waiting to pounce on you (or your project) at some future time - most likely just as you are sweating a deadline?

I mean, I'd almost "expect" that a month from now, I'd be attempting to compile/build or maybe just save, and up would pop a warning dialog, saying that my project had "Mismatched watcha-ma-gizmo! Somewhere, something is mismatched with another something, so Flare and .NET will now quit and go for drinks while you find whatever is mismatched."