Orderer list issues in IE8 and earlier

[LindaW]

I'm wondering if anyone else has this issue - or has a resolution for it?

i'm using Flare 8, still publishing to WebHelp - not publishing to HtML5 yet.

On my local machine, I'm using IE9 - I have no problems there, and no problems when using Chrome or Firefox. But most of my users are using IE8 or earlier, and I have no control over whether or when they update to IE9.

The problem is in my Ordered Lists, where I use "Insert Paragraph" within the numbered list to insert screenshots. In the earler versions of IE, the numbering gets totally out of sync. Items that should have numbers do not, and items that should not have numbers - like screenshots - are getting numbers.

This has only started with Flare 8 - I did not have this problem at all with Flare 7.


Is it possible that I can resolve this by publisihing to HTML5? I haven't tried that yet, because I don't want to encounter any new, unexpected issues until after I publish my latest WebHelp update.

So, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!
Linda

[crdmerge]

Ordered lists in Flare 8 are working just fine in IE8. Are you using the List Actions options properly?

For an unnumbered paragraph, place the cursor at the end of the numbered list item, select List Actions > Make Paragraph Item(s), and press Enter.
Type your content (one or more unnumbered paragraphs). To resume numbering, select List Actions > Make Simple Item(s), and press Enter, or simply click the yellow icon.

See the "Adding Notes or Comments Between List Items" topic in the Flare help.


Good luck,
Leon

[LTinker68]

This has only started with Flare 8 - I did not have this problem at all with Flare 7.

In the generated output, view the source code for the pseudo-list. It seems to me like the style names changed again in v8 (although I don't have Flare open at the moment to double-check), so if you have custom styles or complex selectors, then you might have to modify them to the new MadCap class name. Not entirely sure that's the issue, especially if it's a custom paragraph class, but it's something to double-check.

[LindaW]

Thanks Leon - yes I am using the "make Paragraph item" menu selection to insert unordered items into ordered lists.

Lisa - I did look at my generated code, and there may be an issue there, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I've pasted part of the code here. I'm not sure where the class "ScreenName" came from. I don't remember creating it, and I've never selected it for my list items. I do see it in my Stylesheet, but not in my topic source files, so I don't know how I can edit it. The source files just show <li> - no pseudo class.

I am now also finding that this numbering issue does not appear in the published files on my machine, where the source code resides, but for other users, when opening the WebHelp in IE8 or IE9 the numbering does not display as it should.

Any other thoughts on how to fix this?
Thanks!

<ol>
<li class="ScreenName" value="1">On the <span style="font-style: italic;" class="MyVariablesAdministration Toolbar">Administration Toolbar</span>, click <b class="ScreenSelection">Configure </b>to display the <b class="MenuName">Configure </b>side menu.<p><img src="../resources/images/configure/configurertschedulingmenu1.jpg" /></p></li>
<li class="ScreenName" value="2">Click <b class="ScreenSelection">RightTime Scheduling Instances</b> to expand the menu, and then click <b class="ScreenSelection">Edit</b>. The <span style="mc-tag-and-class: b;" class="MyVariablesProductName">RightTime</span><b class="MenuName"> Instance List</b> view is displayed.<p><img src="../resources/images/configure/rtinstancelist.jpg" /></p><p>For each WFM Instance, the <b class="MenuName">Instance Name</b> and <b class="MenuName">Instance Type</b> are displayed, with the option to <b class="MenuName">Edit </b>or <b class="MenuName">Delete </b>each instance. </p><p>To search for an instance, click a letter from the alpha search along the bottom of the view. Instances beginning with the selected letter are displayed. To display all instance click <b class="ScreenSelection">ALL</b>.</p></li>
<li class="ScreenName" value="3">Click <b class="ScreenSelection">Edit </b>next to the WFM Instance Name. The <b class="MenuName">Edit </b><span style="mc-tag-and-class: b;" class="MyVariablesProductName">RightTime</span><b class="MenuName"> Instance</b> view is displayed for the selected instance.<p><img src="../resources/images/configure/rtinstanceedit2.jpg" /></p></li>
<li class="ScreenName" value="4">Enter changes and click <b class="ScreenSelection">OK</b> to save.</li>
</ol>

[LTinker68]

Lisa - I did look at my generated code, and there may be an issue there, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I've pasted part of the code here. I'm not sure where the class "ScreenName" came from. I don't remember creating it, and I've never selected it for my list items. I do see it in my Stylesheet, but not in my topic source files, so I don't know how I can edit it. The source files just show <li> - no pseudo class.

Is there any chance your content is coming from a Word file or some other import that you've linked to during an import and have marked to update content automatically every time you build? If so, perhaps that class name is coming from there; that would explain why you don't see it in your source code (perhaps you deleted it from Flare once) but it appears in the generated output (re-imported from original source files).

[LindaW]

I haven't imported any files - any content that I have taken from Word, I've copied and pasted into my Flare topics - so I don't think it would be coming from anything like that.

I regenerated my project so that I could look at the log.

I don't find anything out of the ordinary - other than the Generating / Applying / Processing statements, I only see one line that seems out of place:
Image "SearchWindow.jpg" regenerated for "" medium: GeneratedImages\SearchWindow.jpg

I checked the image file, and the file that it is inserted into, and there is nothing out of the ordinary that I can see - so I don't know if that could be causing any problems.

Processing CSS: Resources\Stylesheets\Styles.css...
Collecting source files...
Processing source files...
Image "SearchWindow.jpg" regenerated for "" medium: GeneratedImages\SearchWindow.jpg
Processing CSS: Resources\TableStyles\NewStyle.css...
Processing CSS: Resources\TableStyles\simpletable.css...
Generating output files...
Processing topic: GENERALTOPICS\1Welcome.htm...


I don't know enough about ActiveX to determine whether it can be causing any issues. But I had to uninstall and re-install ActiveX for another application, and after I did the re-install is when I noticed the formatting problem on my machine.

Since no other Flare users seem to be having this problem, I am wondering if I am having some conflicts on my machine, maybe due to setting requirements for the application that I am documenting. The application only works with IE, but is not yet supported on IE9. It does require specific browser settings such as Active X and turning off popup blockers. I'm going to have one of our internal technical people look at this with me, but she doesn't know Flare, so it might be difficult to track down any conflicts.

Do you know of any potential conflicts that we could look for?

[LTinker68]

I don't think ActiveX would be the problem in this case.

Do you know of any potential conflicts that we could look for?

No, but there is another way to determine if the problem is specific to that project or to any project created in Flare. To do that, create a test project in Flare, make no modification to the styles, and insert a list in a test topic and build. If the output looks fine, then you know it's something in the original project that's causing a problem. If the output in the test project doesn't look ok (i.e., you see the same behavior), then my guess is that perhaps you made a modification to one of the files in the Flare program folder (e.g., C:\Program Files\MadCap Software\MadCap Flare Vx) that's filtering out to all the projects created in that version of Flare.

If the former appears to be the case (the test project is ok), then the problem is most likely something in the stylesheet of that specific project. (Assuming that your list wasn't start from a snippet file, but even if it was, you'd see the class in the topic's source code.) To narrow down the problem in the stylesheet, make a copy of the stylesheet outside the project so you have a backup. In the original stylesheet, delete all the styles so you're starting with a blank stylesheet. Save the (blank) stylesheet then build the output; the list should appear as normal, if a bit plain. Open the copied version of the stylesheet and copy-and-paste a few style blocks at a time from the copied stylesheet to the (formerly) blank stylesheet then rebuild the output and check it out. Keep repeating that process until the list once again appears screwed up. When it does, you've now narrowed down the problem to the last set of style blocks that you copied over and can review them to see where the problem is.

[LindaW]

It was IE Compatability Mode (thanks to Alex - MC support)!

We have it turned on for our application. To get proper display of my webhelp, I need to have it turned off.

So, I've searched for a solution that I can imbed in my pages - I found this line of code - although I think it turns it on, instead of off.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7">


If I can, I'd like to add a line of code into my master page, so that each time a page is opened, it checks compatability mode and turns it off (according to posts I've read, this can turn it on for only the displayed page, so that I am not changing the user's setting permanently).

Is there any code that I can add to my Master Page to turn it off?

Thanks,
Linda

[crdmerge]

Found this at http://twigstechtips.blogspot.com/2010/ ... sable.html

Code: Select all

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

I'd test it in a few single topics before adding it to a master page, though.


Good luck,
Leon